How Women Tell History [re: B. Karwowska: Kobieta – Historia – Literatura]

Abstract

The paper is an attempt at tracing the relations between the title categories of Kobieta – Historia – Literatura [Woman – History – Literature]. While concentrating on female writing, the researcher finds there the issues which have not been yet analysed, for example the feminist perspective of Wisława Szymborska’s poetry in her understanding of history; the question of identity, sexuality, corporality in the texts of postwar and contemporary female immigrant writers; politics of gender roles and stereotypes in (literary and non-literary) descriptions of Holocaust; and finally, the spatial determination of the female writers’ (Pola Gojawiczyńska) narratives about the history of postwar Warsaw. However, the most significant purpose of this article is to present diverse literary contexts which make it possible to tell “grand history”/“grand narrative” with the use of various strategies of narration created by women or placing a female figure (”feminity”) inside it.