Not every present given with the best of intentions arouses unmitigated pleasure in the recipient. A live monkey, for example, can cause enormous problems, particularly when it is a diplomatic gift and cannot simply be passed on to the zoo… Chat about the ›Latest Story‹ is one of thirty-seven witty short stories about the element of the absurd in everyday life. A fox and a cockerel appear as figures in a fable, a clergyman makes a deal with the devil, fairy-tale characters are transported into brutal reality. And the richness of the writer's imagination and cryptic humour makes amusing, thought-provoking reading.

We are all alive and yet we are all dilettantes, finding it hard to cope in a world where yesterday everyone was dancing to techno music and now the tango is all the rage, where one is either unemployed or working oneself to death, where footballers suddenly start to look like women and Germany's women's team performs better at the Football World Cup than the ›stronger sex‹. In times such as these, we need help. With humour and a refined turn of phrase, Mrożek tackles the absurdity of our existence. The more grotesque and absurd his tips are, the more they are tangible and concrete – and the more amusing for the reader!

›Emigrants‹ is the penultimate volume of the edition of Mrożek's dramatic works.

During the Nazi occupation of Poland, a captain of the German army is stationed in an occupied house. A fourteen-year-old boy whose father works in the underground against the fascists lives in the house with his aunt, who appears to be above suspicion. The captain brings his girlfriend, an actress called Rosemarie, to live with him. The boy is utterly fascinated by her. Teasingly, Rosemarie calls him Amor, but otherwise she hardly notices his adolescent passion. When an older boy asks Amor to help him stage an attack on the captain, the boy finds himself in deep conflict: If he takes part he will at last be taken seriously by the others, but Rosemarie might be killed in the attack… His Excellency is just trying on a new purple robe, and The Tailor involves him in a sophisticated discussion about »What is culture, what is nature?« A journeyman announces that the barbarians are coming. His Excellency is distraught, for the barbarians can only have one thing in mind: to overthrow him. The tailor wants to complete the fitting in peace, but sounds of a tumult issue from the next room, and the barbarians refuse to be put off with fashion journals any longer. His Excellency, who is afraid of being recognised and beheaded on the spot, manages at the last minute to disguise himself in a monk's habit before Socco, the barbarians' leader, bursts in. Dressed in a badly tanned loincloth and tennis shoes, and carrying a sword, he announces that he has come from the Caucasus to put an end to the decadent society and breathe new life into it with his ideas.

The Ambassador of a big country is given a strange present: a light-blue globe – without any continents. All of a sudden, the head of a man breaks through the top of the globe, like a chick through the egg. »What would you like? A martini? A sherry?« the Ambassador asks. – »Asylum!« the man replies. In addition: ›A Summer's Day‹, ›Alpha‹, ›The Contract‹, ›The Portrait‹, ›The Widows‹

In ›Nochmal von vorn‹ an elderly gentleman and his daughter-in-law withdraw to a country cottage to have a tête-à-tête in peace. However, a ghost appears who turns out to be a dictator to whom the father-in-law had been enslaved in body and soul in younger years. What begins as an erotomanic farce and seems to escalate into a grotesque conflict of the generations finally becomes a deadly serious political satire about a subject which is still of topical interest: the ghost of totalitarianism. In ›Propheten‹ a dictator promises his people a prophet in order to preserve power. However, two of them appear at the same time looking exactly alike. Who is the right one? The one who entered from the right or the one who entered from the left? Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, the state intellectual counsellors, do not know what to recommend. However, since the nation cannot be expected to accept two prophets, they advise the dictator to have one of them decapitated by the official servant… Watzlaff lives in the ›land of restraint‹. When he crosses the sea he suffers shipwreck. A good opportunity for Watzlaff to flee to the ›land of freedom‹. His alter ego, in the figure of a double expresses some last doubts - but Watzlaff, unmoved, lets him drown in the sea. Now there is nothing more to prevent him from becoming rich, powerful and happy, or so Watzlaff thinks. However, it becomes quickly apparent that it is not so simple to find one's way in the beautiful, new world.

In autumn 2004, Sławomir Mrożek received an award in Poland for his services toward ›improving the human condition‹. This made Mrożek pensive: »Although it is true that I do everything for humanity that I can, this somehow appears to leave no impression on human beings themselves, who continue to do as they please.« Nevertheless, after the success of ›Life for Beginners‹, Mrożek has now presented humankind with the gift of a second instruction manual for solving the great problems and answering the questions of existence. In ›Life for the Advanced‹, Mrożek once again tackles the absurdities of life with humour and in refined style. Just like its predecessor, ›Life for the Advanced‹ is the perfect gift for dilettantes of life who do not wish to miss out on the help and advice of one such as Sławomir Mrożek – and for those who treasure a hugely entertaining read in a small format.

Mrożek's creativity covers everything from the dark parable about the 'condition humaine' to playful, seemingly naïve stories and slapstick-like fables. For all the differences with regard to themes, the texts have one thing in common: their subtle humour and their joyful treatment of the ludicrous which characterises Mrożek's entire oeuvre.

The adventure holiday in the romantic hotel turns out to be unpleasant despite the ›beautiful views‹; a hotly contended position as pastor in a small parish ›full of sinners‹ reveals itself to be a nightmare.

In 2002, Sławomir Mrożek had a stroke, after which he suffered from aphasia and gradually had to learn the use of language again. As Baltazar (the name he gave himself to indicate that he was no longer the same person), he looks back on his eventful life, a life in which there was only one constant: the theatre.

In ›Tango‹, Artur's parents recall the times when tango dancing was scandalous. But they have done away with all these and any other restrictions and conventions once and for all. Artur now complains about his total freedom, »because nothing is possible any more, since everything is possible«. He demands his »right to rebellion«.

»Mrożek distorts, defamiliarises and intensifies scenery, plot and characters to an absurd level. However, such absurdity is by no means limited to the political sphere only but instead includes existential issues. In the process it gains, as attested by his anthology of short stories from the years 1986–1990 (›The Secrets of the Beyond‹), downright Beckettian qualities.«

For Sławomir Mrożek, the period between 1962 and 1969 was eventful and decisive: it was the time of his departure from Communist Poland, of his emigration, first to Italy and then to Paris, the time of his first successes in Western Europe as a playwright – and a time of immense private tragedy, the death of his wife Maria. In this, his journal, Mrożek notes down his thoughts on life and writing, moments of happiness and despair, ideas for plays, reflections on books read and on his difficult position as a writer in exile, having left behind in his Polish homeland not just political restrictions, but his language and readership, too. A journey through Mrożek’s inner cosmos, a continuing construction and deconstruction of the self. Not originally written for public view, this journal has a raw, direct force.

Lolo always presses the right buttons to keep her bearded master satisfied – and then she gets bacon. But only for Lolo. Until one day, Lolo's friend, the other laboratory rat, who is getting hungrier and hungrier because she doesn't know how to press the right buttons, finds a method with which she will also get something … In Monisa Clavier, a Polish tourist is lying in wait for a Western film star. Everything now depends on him catching her attention. As the complex-ridden Polish youngster fails to do this, he pretends to be a glass-smashing Russian at a party, because, as foreigners, Russians appear to enjoy an advantage in the West. In this way, the young Pole reaches his primary goal, but this is just where his problems really begin.

›Der Doppelgänger‹ (The Double) of the tyrant had represented him for many years at parades and other boring events, and when he was not on duty he cultivated his land like all other farmers. But the tyrant had now died. There will now be an end to exploitation and injustice, said the bodyguards of the dead tyrant as they looked for the double, and also no more mysterious accidents. There was only one thing they had to ensure: that the people should not under any circumstances be reminded of earlier times by a face. Whether it's a case of a long story or a short piece of prose, whether it concerns famous stories of presidents or slap-stick fables, Mrożek is a master of surprising changes, and his needle-sharp points penetrate the thickest skin.