The Gates of Paradise

The Gates of Paradise (Polish: Bramy raju) is a novel by Polish writer Jerzy Andrzejewski published in 1960. The novel consists of 40,000 words written in one sentence, with nearly no punctuation, making it an exercise in constrained writing. The second sentence contains only four words "And they marched all night" (I szli całą noc). The book tells the story of the Children's Crusade of 1212 trying to reach the Holy Land. The idealistic naivety of major participants is contrasted with the cynicism of others, who are morally corrupted while in charge. The author makes allusions to a somewhat similar situation existing in communist Poland of his own time.