On the Niemen

In the early 1900s, Eliza Orzeszkowa was repeatedly a top contender, with Leo Tolstoy, for the Nobel Prize in literature. Neither won. Nevertheless, her novels have remained classics of Polish literature, and her most famous, On the Niemen, is not only an unusual love story, but is strikingly relevant today. Unhappy after being abandoned by her fiancé, Justyna, an impoverished young woman who lives in a manor house belonging to relatives, desires a life of greater usefulness. While being pu...