Variety of theological concepts in Olga Tokarczuk's prose

What is it about?

The article presents how Olga Tokarczuk uses various religious traditions in her work, offering the reader a wide spectrum of literary and theological concepts. Their diversity is presented on the basis of analyzes of all the novels by the author of "Flights". Her reflection on religion in general and on the religious potential of literature is also traced. Psychological education and knowledge on anthropology resulted in the great importance of the idea of ​​the soul in Tokarczuk's work, which remains the most permanent element of her religious imaginary, as a symbol of the potential transgressiveness of existence. Soul is also, according to her, "the best tender narrator", that is, an instance that narrates the world in such a way as to awaken in the audience a sense of responsibility for its condition. The thesis of the article is that Tokarczuk uses the possibilities of literature to "evoke" the soul in readers by destabilizing various boundaries: between religious traditions, between the reader's ego and its other psychological instances, and between the reader and other subjects, both human and non-human.

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