Swallowing Mercury, Paperback

"Enchantingly elliptical fiction debut that sparkles with a gem-like quality."--The Guardian

"Shines with a surreal and unsettling vigour. As an award-winning poet, Greg writes with a lyricism that brings alive the charms and dangers of Wiola's life."--The Financial Times

"Both magical and sinister, a memoir and a fairy tale and, like Wiola, completely captivating."--The Irish News

While political change hums in the background, Wiola looks back on her youth in a close-knit agricultural community in 1980s Poland: the superstitions of the village women, rumored visits from the Pope, and the locked room in the dressmaker's house. In prose that sparkles with a poet's touch, Wioletta Greg's debut animates the strange wonders of growing up.

Wioletta Greg is a Polish writer; she was born in a small village in 1974 in the Jurassic Highland of Poland. In 2006, she left Poland and moved to the UK. Between 1998 and 2012, she published six volumes of poetry. Her works have been translated into five languages.

Eliza Marciniak is an editor and translator. She lives in London, England.