The Street of Crocodiles

''The Street of Crocodiles'' by Bruno Schulz (1892-1942) was first published in Polish in 1934; this English translation was first published in the US by Walker and Company in 1963, public domain. A novel that blends the real and the fantastic, from "one of the most original imaginations in modern Europe" (Cynthia Ozick). The Street of Crocodiles in the Polish city of Drogobych is a street of memories and dreams where recollections of Bruno Schulz's uncommon boyhood and of the eerie side of his merchant family's life are evoked in a startling blend of the real and the fantastic. Most memorable - and most chilling - is the portrait of the author's father, a maddened shopkeeper who imports rare birds' eggs to hatch in his attic, who believes tailors' dummies should be treated like people, and whose obsessive fear of cockroaches causes him to resemble one. Bruno Schulz, a Polish Jew killed by the Nazis in 1942, is considered by many to have been the leading Polish writer between the two world wars.