The latest addition to my website is György Spiró‘s [The Xs]. This long novel tells the story of Wojciech Bogusławski, the very real Polish dramatist,actor and director on his return to Warsaw after the fall of Napoleon. It is assumed that he will take over running the National Theatre, as he had done previously. However this does not happen but he becomes very involved in staging plays and is adored by the cast, crew and nost of the audience but not so much by he local politicians who see him as too controversial and try to drive him out with a series of anonymous reviews and reports signed only Mr X. He is somewhat larger than life but has debts and many ups and downs in his aim to put on the best plays (mainly foreign). The authorities try to drive him out and then bribe him out but the audience is having none of it. It is a very long novel as we follow the many details of the complications of running a theatre, staging plays and dealing with the still fraught political situation.