A threat of exclusion – negative aesthetics on the example of Zyta Rudzka's work

Abstract

In her work, Zyta Rudzka shows the sphere of periphery, exclusion and the edges of human histories, both in individual and collective dimensions (World War II, fate of German women from post-war recovered territories, Jews at various historical moments, June 1956 in Poznań, March 1968, December 1970 events from the Gdańsk Shipyard, destinies of rural and working-class communities, the poor, the underprivileged and victims of the political and economic shifts of 1989). In the realm of Zyta Rudzka's literary creations, her main characters find themselves suspended, residing precariously on the fringes of reality's tapestry. She dares to cast a spotlight on negative aspects of existence, boldly elevating them to prominence. The hallmark of her characters' lives is a perpetual state of non-transition, lingering impermanence marked by uncertainty. Rudzka weaves enigmatic figures, whose nature is elusive, non-obvious and often disconcerting, capable of provoking extreme, frequently adverse emotions, yet paradoxically eliciting empathy and a slender strand of sympathy. These transgressive denizens of her prose and dramas remain stuck in the liminal zone. The way they are presented brings to mind the Derridean metaphor of the parergon. Rudzka employs a language rich in sensuality, veering from the brutally blunt to the elegantly poetic, as she introduces readers into borderline twisted worlds that defy categorization and escape simple narratives. What is important in the lives of the characters is what happens in the in-between – a world devoid of belonging, teetering on the precipice, caught in a suspended state, where ruptures, voids and the gradual erosion of identity hold sway.