Es 1743 y mientras escucha atento las históricas hazañas de su familia, el pequeño Stanislaw recorre en compañía de su madre un deslumbrante paisaje invernal. Lejos está su pasión por Catalina la Grande y la convulsa llegada de los Poniatowski al trono de Polonia. Dos siglos más tarde y con tan solo 10 años, Elena mira por última vez caer la nieve sobre París. La espera un largo viaje a México, el país de Paula Amor, su madre, en el que encuentran refugio muchos perseguidos por la guerra que asola Europa. Esta primera parte de El amante polaco es un fascinante viaje a través de dos tiempos narrativos y de dos fuerzas del destino: el de las cortes europeas del siglo XVIII y el de la Ciudad de México en plena ebullición, el de las intrigas palaciegas y las tertulias literarias de la década de 1950, el de los romances prohibidos y el de una vida volcada a la escritura, tan llena de momentos intensos como dolorosos. Elena Poniatowska, ganadora del Premio Cervantes 2013, nos entrega su novela más personal, donde el lenguaje íntimo y las emociones se enlazan con la épica historia de un reino a punto de desaparecer. Esta obra cumbre en la carrera de la autora reafirma su sorprendente originalidad y su inigualable talento narrativo.

The year is 1923. The Ku Klux Klan is at the height of its power in the US as membership swells into the millions and they expand beyond their original southern borders. As they grow, so do their targets. As they continue their campaigns of terror against African Americans, their list now includes Catholics and Jews, southern and eastern Europeans, all in the name of "white supremacy." But they are no longer considered a terrorist organization. By adding the messages of moral decency, family values, and temperance, the Klan has slapped on a thin veneer of respectability and has become a "civic organization," attracting ordinary citizens, law enforcement, and politicians to their particular brand of white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant "Americanism." Pennsylvania enthusiastically joined that wave. That was when the Grand Dragon of Pennsylvania decided to display the Klan's newfound power in a show of force. He chose a small town outside of Pittsburgh named after Andrew Carnegie; a small, unassuming borough full of "Catholics and Jews," the perfect place to teach these immigrants "a lesson." Some thirty thousand members of the Klan gathered from as far as Kentucky for "Karnegie Day." After initiating new members, they armed themselves with torches and guns to descend upon the town to show them exactly what Americanism was all about. The Day the Klan Came to Town is a fictionalized retelling of the riot, focusing on a Sicilian immigrant, Primo Salerno. He is not a leader; he's a man with a troubled past. He was pulled from the sulfur mines of Sicily as a teen to fight in the First World War. Afterward, he became the focus of a local fascist and was forced to emigrate to the United States. He doesn't want to fight but feels that he may have no choice. The entire town needs him--and indeed everybody--to make a stand.