“Sometimes publishers get texts which have not been properly read, even by their own authors – books in a terrible state,” says editor Filip Modrzejewski in this week’s Polityka. It’s worse than that, Mr. Modrzejewski. Sometimes readers get books that even the authors haven’t read.

The picture painted in the article is dispiriting. For one thing, Monika Sznajderman (a publisher) fears that the profession is a dying one. For another, editing Jerzy Pilch’s books gave Antoni Libera the urge to start writing for himself. The result was Madame.