". . .The Truth was brought to them by his great-grandfather returning from Argentina. He had been a missionary and scholar of the Holy Scriptures. In 1931 the currently accepted name "Jehovah's Witnesses" was adopted. Three years later in Berlin, on October 7, 1934, Adolf Hitler said, "I will eradicate this vermin from Germany. . ."

A first-person exposé of religious tyranny in Europe today. A recent bestseller in Poland, with the film adaptation currently in production.

Award-winning journalist Robert Rient chronicles his childhood inside Poland's hermetic Jehovah’s Witness community and describes how he eventually comes to terms with his life and identity after leaving his religion.

WITNESS bears witness to a double isolation: first, the boy with a “feline faith” is ostracized by his peers in staunchly Catholic Poland in the 1990s, and second, after he decides to leave the faith, he is rejected by friends and family who remain in the religion. Through his writings, friendships, and training in psychology, Rient manages to survive, but only after completely shedding his former name and identity. Rient’s book is more than just a memoir; it is an important exposé of the psychological abuses suffered in the name of religion.

Advance praise for Witness

"It takes great courage to treat oneself as the protagonist of reportage and to create a nonfiction story from one’s own private life. For this, Witness is a rare thing: auto-reportage. Robert Rient has written a book that needs many readers, a book about the transformation from one life into another. How to give up one’s family, one’s own environment, the values instilled in childhood and not go crazy? The protagonist/author knows how, but he has paid a high price for his decision. It’s possible to change your life! And that’s why I read Witness ravenously."

– Mariusz Szczygieł, the author of the award-winning Gottland

"The story of life among the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which in Poland is regarded as a dubious sect, combined with the author’s problems relating to his sexual orientation makes for a strong mixture. One might even suspect the author of cheap sensation – but this is not that sort of book. Robert Rient succeeds in preserving sincerity and authenticity, and the most admirable element of all is his courage."

– Patrycja Pustkowiak, Poland Book Institute

". . .There are elements of this book that evoke Gombrowicz’s Diary. The comparison is imperfect, of course, but it bears making. “I ought to treat this diary as an instrument of my becoming before you. . . . I would like people to see in me that which I suggest to them,” Gombrowicz writes. This, of course, is the function of every memoir: obliging the reader to see the subject/object of the memoir in the way she or he wishes to be seen. . ." - George Henson at World Literature Today

". . .at once an original and engaging chronicle about growing up gay, and a disturbing look deep into the manipulative and damaging environment of a religious organization that shares many similarities with other fundamentalist Christian churches, and yet is its own strange entity. However, this is not a case study or a psychological essay. It is, rather, an autobiography in three voices. . ." - Joseph Schreiber at Minor Literature

"He made the decision on the way to school to cut off his penis. Immediately after prayers. The night before, God saw him masturbate. Any enjoyment was quickly snatched away by a sense of guilt that lasted until he begged forgiveness. . ." - an excerpt at 3AM Magazine

launch event: Deep Vellum, Dallas, 11/26/2016

Robert Rient is a journalist and a psychologist recommended by the Polish Psychological Association. His work has appeared in Polish publications such as Charaktery [Characters], Coaching, Przekrój [Cross Section], Sekrety Nauki [Secrets of Science], Sens [Sense], among others. His novel It Was About Love came out in 2013. Witness was published in Poland in May 2015 and quickly became a bestseller there. A film adaptation directed by Borys Lankosz is currently in production.

Frank Garrett holds a PhD in philosophy and literary theory. He trained as a translator at the Center for Translation Studies (University of Texas at Dallas) and at Philipps-Universität Marburg after earning advanced certification in Polish philology at the Catholic University of Lublin. In 2001 he was a Fulbright scholar in Warsaw. As an independent philosopher and translator, Dr. Garrett’s work has been published most recently by Black Sun Lit, Duquesne UP, Spurl Editions, and Zeta Books, while his critical reportage has appeared in 3:AM Magazine and Transitions Online. He lives in Dallas with his husband.

excerpt
Chapter 1