The novel “Shit” is the thing that made Wojciech Kuczok famous: in Poland alone the book sold a hundred thousand copies; the author was awarded prestigious literary awards (including Nika); The Polish film based on the story won the main prize at the Gdynia Film Festival and was nominated for an Oscar; it was watched by half a million viewers in Poland. The reaction of readers was truly stormy - from stormy delight to stormy indignation. Kuczok’s quasi-autobiography is often compared to the works of the outstanding master of the grotesque Witold Gombrowicz, and its phantasmagoric ending echoes the ending of Poe’s classic “horror story” “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Kuchok has a firmly established reputation as a virtuoso stylist who effortlessly moves from realism to surrealism, from tragedy to farce, jokes and puns. Kuchok’s musicality was clearly manifested in the construction of a book of his short prose under the general title “Phantomistika”, which consisted of five stories (one, “The Queen of Sorrows” gave the title to this book), separated by interlude miniatures (each entitled one of Chopin’s preludes). All stories, in essence, are about love - about love, unhappy and happy, lost and conquering death.