Unwillingly Orientalist: Gustaw Herling-Grudziński’s Travel Diary to Burma as an Example of an Unusual Postcolonial Eastern European Account

Abstract

This article explores Gustaw Herling-Grudziński’s largely forgotten travel diary “A Journey to Burma.” It argues that the strategy Herling-Grudziński employed to describe the postcolonial world was a unique one. It did not belong to the “socialist postcolonialism” narrative, nor was it a part of Western orientalist discourse. Herling-Grudziński’s Eastern European past and identity deeply influenced his account. Despite some simplification, he was able to summarize Burmese reality surprisingly accurately. The article claims that Herling-Grudziński’s travelogue represents a new angle to the narrative of the relations between Eastern European people of letters and inhabitants of colonized countries.