In thirteen interconnected stories, White Nights tells of the various tragedies and misfortunes that befall a group of people from the same village in the remote Beskid Niski region, in southern Poland. Each story revolves around a different character and how it is that they manage to continue on despite the poverty, disappointment, tragedy, despair, brutality, and general sense of futility that surrounds them. Urszula relates to us, with the sincerest care and honesty, a local--yet so clearly universal--story of ruin and hope. A story where the protagonists do not ask to be understood, but merely to be seen and to be heard.

Kate Webster's brilliant translation of Urszula's poetic, yet often earthen, prose brings us to places that, though they are seldom seen in literature, we may never forget.