In dreary skies and through turbulent dreamscapes comes House of Day, House of Night, the latest English language addition of the iconic Olga Tokarczuk’s oeuvre. I selected this book to review to soothe my fangirl heart—having read nearly all her other translated works, I simply had to have a go at this one as well. To no surprise, Antonia Lloyd-Jones has once again provided a masterful, engaging, and exact translation of one of the world’s most beloved European writers, and I’m honored to once again have the chance to toss my thoughts and opinions into the proverbial ring of reviews.
Reading this book as someone who is familiar with Tokarczuk’s other works, this book did feel, if I’m being truthful, very déjà vu. It mimics other books in her catalog thematically, stylistically, and elementally…allow me to tell you what I mean. This book echoes Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead in its setting—the characters here are of a small, at times eerie Polish town in the mountains, which focuses on astrology and character investigation of the speaker’s neighbors. House of Day, House of Night mimics the style of the inimitable Flights—Tokarczuk’s award-bedecked and possibly most well-known work—weaving in and out of longer story segments of unrelated characters to the speaker, venturing into the past and out of the future, with story segments ranging from paragraphs to full-length chapters. And finally there are even hints of The Empusium scattered throughout, with an abundance of mushrooms and gender-investigating storytelling in the pages. All of this, of course, makes sense—some quick, rudimentary googling will tell you that this book actually came out before those other three and is just getting around to being translated now, so it isn’t surprising that we would see the building blocks of these other iconic stories here within this work.
But does that mean you’re only getting things you’ve read before of Tokarczuk’s if you pick up House of Day, House of Night? Is it a skip? Is it a good place to start with her oeuvre, if you’re that kind of reader? How does it hold up compared to her other translated works?
All great questions, and let me start by saying this: in my opinion, there is no such thing as a “skip” when it comes to Tokarczuk; she is a once in a lifetime literary giant that you should try to read as much as you can, especially if you want to get (or already are) into translated literature. That being said, I do think that of all these aforementioned works, House of Day, House of Night held my attention the least, and didn’t “wow” me in the ways other works of hers have in the past. In my mental meanderings around why this was after I finished it, I do think the partially obvious answer was that it felt like I was reading something I already had read. But I do, at least in part, think that the stories that wandered from the small town of Nowa Ruda (those townspeople featuring core characters of the speaker, her partner R., and a few neighbors such as Marta and So-and-So), were less engrossing, less powerful than I had hoped. It was by no means for lack of prose talent, but merely some of the ideas for these short story segments felt less engaging than I would have liked.
That being said, there were great moments where I was reading and I’d enter a flow state, moving from page to page and thinking yes this is what my favorite writer does. The stories that stayed in the town with those previously mentioned characters were strong and felt purposeful and powerful to me, investigating what we think of as alive and dead, as progress or stagnance. My favorite longer story was “Who wrote the life of the saint and how did he know it all”, an interspersed short story that followed a monk who desperately wanted to be a woman. The writing was stunning, and the investigations into gender were both moving and true. This was one of those stories that make you truly feel as though you’ve walked in another’s shoes, blisters and all.
Much of what are my critiques here boil down to my personal reading preferences: I don’t love a short story collection, and this leaned harder into that vibe than I thought it would. It’s immensely difficult not to compare this work to the others of Tokarczuk’s that I’ve adored, and much of what I think I found disengaging was simply because I had read similar things of hers before. From a non-objective standpoint (fangirl, remember?), I wouldn’t start with this one, or even have it on your “must-read” list if you’re just beginning your Tokarczuk journey, not when Flights and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead exist. Consider this a book to pick up and put down and pick up again, to digest over time, to read as small stories of big and little lives across the world, across time, across language as you’re able. Antonia Lloyd-Jones translates faithfully, and no matter the pacing, Olga Tokarczuk always brings stories that stick with you, that make you keep coming back. Even though this wasn’t my favorite work that’s ever been brought to English from Tokarczuk, her real and raw voice rang true as it always does, and the experience of reading her prose was still moving and awe-invoking in her command of language.
Fiction
House of Day, House of Night
By Olga Tokarczuk
Riverhead Books
Published December 2, 2025
The reviewer thinks this is a new novel, and that it echoes other, “earlier” novels by Tokarczuk. It isn’t; and it can’t. It was published in Polish in 1998, and was first published in English translation in 2002. The version under review is simply an American edition of the 2092 English edition. All this is evident from a glance at the copyright page.