During the past decade, Polish women writers have published a variety of titles which aresymptomatic of the ‘new times’ and fashionable literary trends. The most prominent examplesinclude not only texts which can be broadly defined as ‘queer writing’ (e.g. novels by EwaSchilling and Marta Dzido), but also works which are associated with pop culture and havebeen defined outside of Poland as ‘chick lit. I would argue that various novels authored byKatarzyna Grochola, who has famously been called the ‘Polish Bridget Jones’, belong to thiscategory. Besides these two types of writing, there has also been a significant developmentwithin the genre of ‘erotic novels’ (e.g. Nielegalne zwi?zki (2010) by Gra?yna Plebanek, aswell as other new novels such as Rdza (2008) by Ewa Berent and Naga (2010) by IzabelaSzolc.) All these novels are quite diverse, and they all transgress the conventional way ofdepicting heterosexual sex scenes and erotic encounters. They also address in new ways themodern woman’s search for identity in modern Poland. Of particular interest in this type ofliterature is its depiction of cultural diversity on the one hand, and its local context on theother. Thus, my primary concern in analysing this newly emerging type of women’s writing iswith the following question: To what extent do these writers consciously imitate ‘WesternEuropean’ models, and to what extent do they create their own local genre by responding tothe needs of a culture in which sexuality is no longer a taboo topic?
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