The Dark Domain

'...reading The Dark Domain by Stephan Grabinski is such a revelatory experience. Because here is a writer for whom supernatural horror is manifest precisely in modernity - in electricity, fire-stations, trains: the uncanny as the bad conscience of today. Sometimes Grabinski is known as the Polish Poe but this is misleading. Where Poe's horror is agonised, a kind of extended shriek, Grabinski's is cerebral, investigative. His protagonists are tortured and aghast, but not because they suffer at the caprice of Lovecraftian blind idiot gods: Grabinski's universe is strange and its principles are perhaps not what we expect, but they are principles - rules- and it is in their exploration that the mystery lies. This is horror as rigour.'
China Mieville in The Guardia


About the Author
Grabinski, Stefan: - Stephan Grabinski (1887-1936) Polish short story writer and novelist. Studied at Lvov University before becoming a teacher. He published seven volumes of short stories, three plays and three novels all within the fantasy genre. Dedalus has published a volume of his short stories under the title of The Dark Domain and a further two stories in The Dedalus Book of Polish Fantasy.Lipinski, Mroslaw: - Miroslaw Lipinski is a Polish-American translator based in New York City. His passionate advocacy for the writing of Stefan Grabinski has done much to create a readership for Grabinski in the English-speaking world. He has translated a collection of Grabinski stories for Dedalus, The Dark Domain.