Agnieszka Bąbel (The Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences)

Self-Made Man: Henryk Sienkiewicz’s American Experiment

In the works devoted to the life and work of Henryk Sienkiewicz, the authors often eagerly juxtapose his 1876-1878 trip, which inspired Listy z podróży do Ameryki (Letters from the Journey to America), with his dream trip to Africa in 1890, which was long delayed and largely unsuccessful. One of these authors is, for instance, Dariusz Trześniowski, whose text devoted to the analysis of Listy z Afryki (Letters from Africa), although in many respects debatable, puts forward an interesting interpretation. Travel is understood as “an attempt at an auto-definition of one’s self, recognition of one’s own ambiguous and contradictory identity.”^[1] It might be useful to apply this interpretation – travel in search of identity – to Sienkiewicz’s first trip, or rather to its literary reflection.