Queer antecedents in Poland. The failed emergence of gay novel at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s (with a camp reading)

Abstract The article presents the emergence of what is referred to as the first wave of Polish gay/queer literature in the 1980s/1990s. The novels in question are Gorące uczynki by Witold Jabłoński (1988), Zakazana miłość by Tadeusz Gorgol (1990), Nie znany świat by Antoni Romanowicz (1992) and Ból istnienia by Marcin Krzeszowiec (1992). As an attempt at a historical and theoretical analysis of the phenomenon of gay novel in Poland, the article places Polish queer emancipation in the broader context of the CEE, Polish People's Republic and the early 1990s political transformation. It also addresses a multitude of theoretical positions and findings in the field of Polish queer history concerning temporality issues and outlines the periodization of queer literature and summarizes the novels' hitherto reception. As an attempt at a possible interpretive path, the article offers a close reading of the novels detailing the process of camp coding (as in David Halperin), addressing the possibility of a reparative approach (as in Eve Kosofsky‐Sedgwick) and finally setting the literary texts in the context of Jack Halberstam's queer art of failure.