Lost Souls: Outsider Myths in the Works of Olga Tokarczuk

Abstract

The works of Olga Tokarczuk have garnered significant attention since she won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2018. Her narrative style engages with complex historical and contemporary issues, often confronting Polish cultural myths in the process. These myths have historically ostracized or oppressed whole groups of Poles, namely women, ethnic minorities, and religious minorities, creating a demographic category referred to in this thesis as outsiders. With the collapse of the Soviet Union leading to the political and cultural sovereignty of the Republic of Poland, these myths re-emerged. This paper posits that Tokarczuk challenges three outsider myths consistently throughout her body of literature: the Polish Mother, Catholic Hegemony, and the Great Past. She argues that these myths are neither historically faithful nor contemporarily tenable. Instead, she puts forth her own myth of Inclusion to supplant Polish outsider myths.