Others are short stories, others still are fictionalized events: Chopin’s heart really was carved from his body and buried separately in Warsaw, a courtier named Angelo Soliman really was skinned and displayed in Austria (this book will take you to Atlas Obscura). Some of these fragments are musings by an unnamed narrator. She’s known in Poland for her mythical prose style, and Jennifer Croft, to her immense credit, has beautifully translated this quality into English: Flights is filled with liquid, mellifluous prose. Tokarczuk calls Flights her ‘constellation novel’ of orphic yet meticulous narratives that traverse time and space. It’s a brilliant, experimental tour de force, a book of fragments. Fitzcarraldo’s signed up for two of her works, Flights and The Books of Jacob – and when you read Flights, you understand why. I felt stupid for not having heard of her before. Take Olga Tokarczuk: a Polish household name, author of eight novels and two short story collections, translated in a dozen languages, recipient of numerous awards.

Crucially, in our Trump/Brexit state of the world, they seem to have made it their mission to translate artists who are lauded in their home countries but aren’t that well-known elsewhere. In just three years, Fitzcarraldo Editions have published remarkably intelligent books on everything from orientalism to football.

Flights by olga tokarczuk summary