JUGGLER. ROMAIN GARY'S MULTIPLE FATES
Writer, aviator, diplomat, contemporary Don Juan. Son of a Russian Jewish mother from the Vilnius area, war hero, popular author of several dozen novels. Romain Gary/ Emile Ajar - the only two-time winner of the French Goncourt Prize. The author of the extraordinary "Promise at Dawn", in which he also recalls his Warsaw youth, and the wonderful "Life Before us", a story published in millions of copies worldwide and filmed twice. The main character, Mrs. Roza, an old Jewish prostitute caring for an Arab orphan, was played first by Simone Signoret (1977) and more recently by Sophia Loren (2020).
He was an outstanding, if uneven, writer and an intriguing man. He juggled the many facets of his fate. Agata Tuszyńska presents the most interesting of them. She investigates the truth and warns against it. She describes the chameleon-like soul of her protagonist and confronts her own Jewish identity with it.
MAMA ALWAYS RETURNS
Based on the memories of a Holocaust survivor, this is a moving story of a girl who was in hiding for many months in the Warsaw Ghetto. A poetically illustrated testimony to the saving power of love and imagination.