The Street of Croc­o­diles in the Pol­ish city of Dro­gob­ych is a street of mem­o­ries and dreams where rec­ol­lec­tions of Bruno Schulz’s uncom­mon boy­hood and of the eerie side of his mer­chant fam­i­ly’s life are evoked in a star­tling blend of the real and the fan­tas­tic. Most mem­o­rable — and most chill­ing — is the por­trait of the author’s father, a mad­dened shop­keep­er who imports rare birds’ eggs to hatch in his attic, who believes tai­lors’ dum­mies should be treat­ed like peo­ple, and whose obses­sive fear of cock­roach­es caus­es him to resem­ble one. Bruno Schulz, a Pol­ish Jew killed by the Nazis in 1942, is con­sid­ered by many to have been the lead­ing Pol­ish writer between the two world wars.