Author: Romuald Roman

280 pages | 6 x 9 | Fiction/Novel

ISBN: 979-888-855-0038

This humorous satire on communist Poland in the 1970’s takes place in an imaginary hotel deep in the Tatra Forest of Poland. Based on a story within a story recounted to the author, the hotel is a luxurious facility which never had a name and is termed “NEZ” for No Entry Zone. Here a full detachment of Secret Service guards were dispatched, not only to “protect and serve,” but to “protect and surveil” maids, waiters, bell boys, chefs, kitchen staff, and managers.

Whether or not the secluded valley where NEZ once welcomed provincial governors and well- connected apparatchiks to its spa, excellent cuisine, unlimited wine and beer (and other pleasures best left to conjecture) ever existed, is left to the reader. Real or imaginary, this secret place is well worth exploring.

From this unique epistolary record between an extraordinary pedagogue and her student, we gain deep and new insights into Boulanger’s beliefs and feelings, and how they changed as she faced the challenges of aging. Another intimate perspective on Boulanger comes from her favorite post-war student Idil Biret who vividly describes her resistance to Boulanger’s rigidity.