Narrated by a nameless female traveller, the novel is a ‘constellation’ of 116 vignettes - stories both real and imagined - that the narrator collects throughout her travels. These vignettes recount the experiences of people travelling in different countries and circumstances but who are, in some way, connected to each other. Loosely based on Tokarczuk’s own experiences, the book is a plea for more meaningful travel and for going beyond what she calls “timid tourism”, where one travels only to stay “within the same metaphysical orbit of home” and leaves “in order to return.” First published in 2008 in Polish, this book made Olga Tokarczuk the first Polish writer to win the Man Booker International Prize.

From the incomparably original Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, Flights interweaves reflections on travel with an in-depth exploration of the human body, broaching life, death, motion, and migration. Chopin’s heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time. Where are you from? Where are you coming in from? Where are you going? we call to the traveler. Enchanting, unsettling, and wholly original, Flights is a master storyteller’s answer.

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE

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