An attractive young lady nervously steps out from a long queue and then back, holding several books close to her heart.
Her turn to get them autographed by famous Polish writer Janusz Leon Wisniewski might not even come, with just 30 minutes left in the signing session and some two hundred fans in front of her.
“I wouldn’t mind standing here for even a couple of hours, I’m just worried my turn won’t come,” says Iryna Gurska. A Polish language teacher, she read almost all of Wisniewski’s books in the original. “I love the language and, of course, the way he writes his fascinating love stories,” she laughs.
Wisniewski came to Ukraine as a special guest of Book Arsenal, Kyiv’s annual book fair, and spent three days in meet-and-greet events with readers. Everywhere, he was met by excited female fans.
He attributes his success in post-Soviet states to a shared East European mentality. “We all are very romantic, we love to be sad, drink vodka and get even sadder. We organize revolutions and then never know what to do with these revolutions,” he said, sitting in his hotel room.
Despite his success, Wisniewski, who has doctorate degrees in Computer Science and Chemistry, insists he is more of a scientist than a writer. He authored about 30 books, including many best-sellers, but most of his income still comes from programming.
Six of Wisniewski’s books have been translated into Ukrainian and more are coming, says Oleh Pogrebniy, director of Machaon-Ukraine, the writer’s Ukrainian publishing house. “Loneliness On The Net is still the top seller,” he says. “We have already printed several dozen thousand and it still leaves all the new ones behind.”
Over one million copies of Loneliness On The Net have been sold in Ukraine and Russia.
The book, the only one currently available in English, describes a passionate love affair between Jakub and a nameless woman he met online. The writer says it’s based on a true story.
“I know this woman, she lives in Poznan. Her son from this affair, also named Jakub, is now 14 years old. But the woman broke up with his father,” he says.
Wisniewski complains people don’t believe him when he says the protagonist, also a programmer, wasn’t based on himself.
“One of the unbelievers was my wife,” Wisniewski says sadly, adding the book was one of the reasons he got divorced.
He says he deliberately made Jakub perfect, giving him the best features from all the men he knows.
“Now all the Russian and Ukrainian women think that all the Polish men are like Jakub from the book. I did more for Poland than the whole Foreign Ministry,” the writer says, laughing.
The book first came out in Poland’s Playboy magazine. Wisniewski says he sent a piece of the story to a friend after a wine-fueled evening, later regretting the decision. As an advisor to Playboy, however, the friend soon convinced him to publish parts of the story – the erotic scenes, to be precise.
It also pushed Wisniewski to publish the whole book. “I just took a telephone directory, picked up some 15 publishing houses and sent them a printed copy of the novel. Some of them still haven’t replied,” Wisniewski remembers. Those who did, made a fortune on the book.
Internet, love and passion are the main themes in Wisniewski’s books. His latest novel, On Facebook With A Son (2012), features Wisniewski’s mother, who died many years ago, sending her son Facebook messages that describe her afterlife in hell.
At one of the meetings in Kyiv, a middle-aged woman approached Wisniewski, asking “How do you make it feel like these stories were written by a woman? How did you become an expert in women?”
Wisniewski responds with his offensively charming smiles and says: “A man who says he is an expert in women is insane.”
Insane or not, he certainly knows how to drive a woman crazy. With his books, that is.
Kyiv Post staff writer Daryna Shevchenko can be reached at [email protected], and on Twitter at @Iskrynka.
