How long does it take to read Swimming in the Dark?
Tomasz Jedrowski
Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski takes about 3 hours 40 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 3 hours 40 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2020. 200 pages, about 55,000 words.
8 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 6 hours 7 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 3 hours 40 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 18 minutes |
The page count is the median across 8 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
When university student Ludwik meets Janusz at a summer agricultural camp, he is fascinated yet wary of this handsome, carefree stranger. But a chance meeting by the river soon becomes an intense, exhilarating, and all-consuming affair. After their camp duties are fulfilled, the pair spend a dreamlike few weeks in the countryside, bonding over an illicit copy of James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. Inhabiting a beautiful, natural world removed from society and its constraints, Ludwik and Janusz fall deeply in love. But in their repressive Communist and Catholic society, the passion they share is utterly unthinkable. Once they return to Warsaw, the charismatic Janusz quickly rises in the political ranks of the party and is rewarded with a highly coveted government position. Ludwik is drawn toward impulsive acts of protest, unable to ignore rising food prices and the stark economic disparity around them. Their secret love and personal and political differences slowly begin to tear them apart as both men struggle to survive in a regime on the brink of collapse.
Subjects: Fiction, gay, Poland, fiction, Fiction, coming of age, Fiction, lgbtq+, general, Historical Fiction, Fiction
