The Beautiful Mrs Seidenman cover art

The Beautiful Mrs Seidenman

With an introduction by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free + £10 Audible voucher

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Get this deal
Offer ends on 5 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.
More purchase options

The Beautiful Mrs Seidenman

By: Andrzej Szczypiorski
Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
Get this deal

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends on 5 July 2026 at 11:59 BST. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £17.94

Buy Now for £17.94

In the Nazi-occupied Warsaw of 1943, Irma Seidenman, a young Jewish widow, possesses two attributes that can spell the difference between life and death: she has blue eyes and blond hair. With these, and a set of false papers, she has slipped out of the ghetto, passing as the wife of a Polish officer, until one day an informer spots her on the street and drags her off to the Gestapo.

At times a dark lament, at others a sly and sardonic thriller, The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman is the story of the thirty-six hours that follow Irma's arrest and the events that lead to her dramatic rescue as the last of Warsaw's Jews are about to meet their deaths in the burning ghetto.

'Dense, lyrical and deeply unsettling . . . By focusing on a couple of weeks in the lives of a dozen Warsaw residents and occasionally leaping forward into the convulsions of recent Polish politics, Szczypiorski is able to delineate the consequences of World War II on a group of ordinary citizens. Though the novel is in many ways an anguished and loving elegy for the Poland that sustained the convulsions of World War II, the book also takes an uncompromising look at the anti-Semitism and class prejudices that have flourished so tragically in that country - and the attendant legacy of fear and hate and guilt' MICHIKO KAKUTANI, NEW YORK TIMES

Translated from the Polish by Klara Glowczewska 20th Century Classics Fiction Historical Fiction Judaism World Literature Witty Holocaust
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1

Critic reviews

Dense, lyrical and deeply unsettling... Szczypiorski creates in these pages a kaleidoscopic portrait of life in Nazi-occupied Warsaw... By focusing on a couple of weeks in the lives of a dozen Warsaw residents Szczypiorski is able to delineate the consequences of World War II on a group of ordinary citizens, and the place of that war within the arc of Polish history... As Szczypiorski sees it, good and evil, heroism and cowardice, are not the stuff of high tragedy; they are simply elements of daily life, occasionally thrown into relief by events like war and persecution. Thanks to the trickery of luck and grace, innocence may be redeemed by a mercenary act, as easily as it may be saved through genuine charity and compassion; injustice may result from carelessness and bad timing, as easily as it may proceed from bigotry and hatred.
With a fine balance between poetic tenderness and an unflinching account of the brutal realities of the day, Szczypiorski shows us the intertwining lives of the few Poles, Jews, and Germans who risk everything to save her.
There are accidental heroes and inadvertent villains, surprising and unexpected switches that lend the book its extraordinary originality.
What happens to the beautiful Mrs. Seidenman is wholly believable, and carries the full impact of historic truth.
Brilliantly choreographed . . . blunt and hauntingly moving.
The prose is stunning, thanks to a masterful translation by Klara Glowczewska, and the characters are so fully fleshed that they seem to step off the page in order to communicate with the reader.
Complex and convincing.
A rare find... An exceptional storyteller, Szczypiorski passionately re-creates the tumultuous war years for us, also providing insight into the current resurgence of Polish nationalism and Solidarity.
The authorial voice here - now gentle, now sardonic, but always piercingly omniscient - takes unique advantage of its eighties' perspective to create an unforgettable group portrait.
A masterpiece of modern prose which grips the reader with the power of a high-class thriller.
Szczypiorski recounts the eternal calvary of a Poland drunk with independence, but always enslaved and always crushed, in a sparse language as classical as that of Thomas Mann. Superb.
A masterful accomplishment, written with the kind of suspense that makes it impossible to put down.
All stars
Most relevant
Extremely thoughtful and engaging story. Narration is distracting especially with mispronunciation of Polish names (how can anyone get Paweł or Łódź wrong when narrating a book about Poland? Surely you would look up names you don't know?)
Would still recommend it despite these grievances.

Great story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As someone with a basic knowledge of Polish I was able to compare passages of the original language with their translation. The former is permeated with poetic imagery; unfortunately the translator lacks the skill or will to convey this. Secondly, the narrator failed to make passable attempts at pronouncing the names: ‘ Mrs Goshtomshka’ sounds so bad that alarm bells should have rung. Thirdly, the Introduction doesn’t help with the novel’s complexity. C N Adichie lauds it as a novel ‘noone’s heard of’; yet, it’s been translated into 15 languages and won literary prizes. I am returning this book.

A wonderful book ruined by poor translation, poor narration and distracting Introduction

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.