In second-person narration addressed to his new friend and lover, Ludwik reflects on furtive childhood desires (“Years of yearning compressed like a muscle, pulsating mercilessly”) and describes their secret savoring of a banned James Baldwin book. At a summer work camp in 1980, 22-year-old Ludwik Głowacki meets the broad-shouldered Janusz, with whom he discusses the repression and loneliness of gay men in their society. Lyrical and sensual, immersive and intense, Tomasz Jedrowski has crafted an indelible and thought-provoking literary debut that explores freedom and love in all its incarnations.Jedrowski’s dazzling debut charts an evocative sexual awakening and coming of age amid political unease in early 1980s Poland. Shifting from the intoxication of first love to the quiet melancholy of growing up and growing apart, Swimming in the Dark is a potent blend of romance, post-war politics, intrigue, and history. Their secret love and personal and political differences slowly begin to tear them apart as both men struggle to survive in a regime on the brink of collapse. Ludwik is drawn toward impulsive acts of protest, unable to ignore rising food prices and the stark economic disparity around them.

Once they return to Warsaw, the charismatic Janusz quickly rises in the political ranks of the party and is rewarded with a highly-coveted position in the ministry. But in their repressive communist and Catholic society, the passion they share is utterly unthinkable. Inhabiting a beautiful natural world removed from society and its constraints, Ludwik and Janusz fall deeply in love. After their camp duties are fulfilled, the pair spend a dreamlike few weeks camping in the countryside, bonding over an illicit copy of James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. But a chance meeting by the river soon becomes an intense, exhilarating, and all-consuming affair.

When university student Ludwik meets Janusz at a summer agricultural camp, he is fascinated yet wary of this handsome, carefree stranger. Set in early 1980s Poland against the violent decline of communism, a tender and passionate story of first love between two young men who eventually find themselves on opposite sides of the political divide-a stunningly poetic and heartrending literary debut for fans of Andre Aciman, Garth Greenwell, and Alan Hollinghurst. Tomasz Jedrowski is a remarkable writer.” - Justin Torres, bestselling author of We the Animals “Captivating both for its shimmering surfaces and its terrifying depths. “Imagine Call Me By Your Name set in Communist Poland and you'll get a sense of Jedrowski's moving debut about a consuming love affair amidst a country being torn apart.” - O Magazine, LGBTQ Books That’ll Change the Literary Landscape in 2020

Swimming in the dark novel