Swimming in the Dark
In the summer of 1980 in communist Poland, Ludwik, a literature graduate waiting for his doctoral program to start, is sent to a mandatory state agricultural camp outside Warsaw and meets Janusz, a tall, magnetic young man whose confidence feels, to Ludwik, like its own kind of political freedom. What begins as a private summer at a lake that nobody officially knows they visited turns, once they return to the city, into the slower, harder question of how two gay men build anything together under a regime that can, and will, use their lives against them. Tomasz Jedrowski's 2020 debut, written in English and set against the Solidarity crackdown, is a short, lyric novel about first love under surveillance and the cost of the decisions each man makes about whether to stay.
Where Swimming in the Dark keeps showing up
Two of our editors' lists feature this novel.
What you might want to know about Swimming in the Dark
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In the summer of 1980, university student Ludwik meets the magnetic Janusz at an agricultural work camp. Their love affair takes them through one Warsaw winter as the politics of late-Communist Poland push them apart.
Swimming in the Dark was written by Tomasz Jedrowski and published in 2020. Jedrowski is a Polish-British author; the novel was his English-language debut.
Yes. Swimming in the Dark is a queer historical novel set in 1980s communist Poland, following two young men whose love affair runs against the regime's brutality. It is widely cited alongside Call Me by Your Name in literary queer romance.
Swimming in the Dark is 208 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Swimming in the Dark takes most readers 3 to 5 hours to finish.
Swimming in the Dark is a standalone novel by Tomasz Jedrowski, not part of a series.
Swimming in the Dark is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
