SWIMMING IN THE DARK

SWIMMING IN THE DARK is a tender and passionate debut by Tomasz Jedrowski. Set against the decline of Polish communism in the early 1980s, the novel tells the story of first love between two men as they seek moral integrity and survival under a repressive system.

Ludwig is an anxious and disillusioned student, made to attend an agricultural camp before he can graduate, when he meets the seemingly less conflicted Janusz. They bond over an illicit copy of James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, and share a brief, precious intimacy in the countryside, away from society's constraints – but once back in Warsaw their differing responses to the regime start to pull at them. While Ludwig is drawn towards impulsive acts of political protest, Janusz's ambitions take shape, first in the form of a role at a government ministry, then in a growing friendship with Hania, the open-hearted daughter of a senior Party official.

Reluctantly at first, Ludwig is pulled by Janusz into the world of the children of the ruling elite – a world free of shortages, with access to Western goods, and dacha parties – until one riotous weekend when he is painfully confronted by the compromises he is making. Seeking a visa to leave for the West, Ludwig finds he is on a government watchlist of homosexuals and, facing blackmail by an official, knows that only an act of betrayal or his unwitting rival Hania can help him. SWIMMING IN THE DARK is framed by passages set a few years later in New York: as Ludwig listens on the radio to the news of Poland falling under martial law, he tries to come to terms with his past and find a way forward, reflecting on the limits of love in an oppressive society.

SWIMMING IN THE DARK is a wonderfully immersive novel that deftly interweaves the personal and the political. It's a story in which the setting in time and place are as integral, vivid and intriguing as the characters are compelling, and its melancholy is matched by its anger and bravery. It has touches of The Dreamers and will appeal to readers of Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman, What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell, The End of Eddy by Édouard Louis, and Alan Hollinghurst's novels.

Tomasz Jedrowski was born in Germany to Polish parents, but has lived in several countries, speaks five languages, and is a graduate of Cambridge University and Université de Paris. He currently lives in Warsaw but often travels to the UK. SWIMMING IN THE DARK is his first novel.