“Foucault in Warsaw” review in Lambda Lit

A startling book I picked up at a publishers fair turned into my latest book review for Lambda Literary.

Michel Foucault’s work forever changed our understanding of sanity, sexuality, morality, and crime. And yet his life concealed a personal secret that might explain how he first arrived at his profound realizations about society. . . It was a rumor, an urban legend, as no direct evidence of the relationship survived either in Poland or in Foucault’s archives in France. Or was it?

This secret I refer to above is finally rescued from the shadows and exposed to light in Foucault in Warsaw – an investigative book by Remigiusz Ryziński, a writer, gender studies scholar, and professor of philosophy at the University of Warsaw. Nominated for Poland’s most prestigious literary award, Foucault in Warsaw , the book also throws back the curtain “on the rich and rewarding—though at times perilous—gay life bubbling underground in the Polish capital” in the midst of the Cold War.

I really enjoyed this wonderful book and hope that it will continue to find new readers through its exposure in LLR.

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