Books by Witold Gombrowicz
A Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes
Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969), novelist, essayist, and playwright, was one of the most important Polish writers of the twentieth century. A candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, he was described by Milan Kundera as “one of the great novelists of our century” and by John Updike as “one of the profoundest of the late moderns.”
Gombrowicz’s works were considered scandalous and subversive by the ruling powers in Poland and were banned for nearly forty years. He spent his last years in France teaching philosophy; this book is a series of reflections based on his lectures.
Gombrowicz discusses Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Heidegger in six “one-hour” essays and addresses Marxism in a shorter “fifteen-minute” piece. The text—a small literary gem full of sardonic wit, brilliant insights, and provocative criticism—constructs the philosophical lineage of his work.
Copies
No copies available.
Diary (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)
A single-volume edition of Diary, Gombrowicz’s acclaimed masterpiece, now with previously unpublished pages restored
Just before the outbreak of World War II, young Witold Gombrowicz left his home in Poland and set sail for South America. In 1953, still living as an expatriate in Argentina, he began his Diary with one of literature’s most memorable openings:
“Monday
Me.
Tuesday
Me.
Wednesday
Me.
Thursday
Me.”
Gombrowicz’s Diary grew into a vast collection of essays, short notes, polemics, and confessions on myriad subjects—from political events to literature to the certainty of death. Not a traditional journal, Diary is instead the commentary of a brilliant and restless mind. Widely regarded as a masterpiece, this brilliant work compelled Gombrowicz’s attention for a decade and a half until he penned his final entry in France, shortly before his death in 1969.
Long out of print in English, Diary is now presented in a convenient single volume featuring a new preface by Rita Gombrowicz, the author’s widow and literary executor. This edition also includes ten previously unpublished pages from the 1969 portion of the diary.
Copies
No copies available.
Trans-Atlantyk: An Alternate Translation (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)
A brilliant, semiautobiographical satirical novel from one of the foremost figures in twentieth-century Polish literature, now in a new English translation
Considered by many to be among the greatest writers of the past hundred years, Polish novelist Witold Gombrowicz explores the modern predicament of exile and displacement in a disintegrating world in his acclaimed classic Trans-Atlantyk. Gombrowicz’s most personal novel—and arguably his most iconoclastic—Trans-Atlantyk is written in the style of a gaweda, a tale told by the fireside in a language that originated in the seventeenth century. It recounts the often farcical adventures of a penniless young writer stranded in Argentina when the Nazis invade his homeland, and his subsequent “adoption” by the Polish embassy staff and émigré community.
Based loosely on Gombrowicz’s own experiences as an expatriate, Trans-Atlantyk is steeped in humor and sharply pointed satire, interlaced with dark visions of war and its horrors, that entreats the individual and society in general to rise above the suffocating constraints of nationalistic, sexual, and patriotic mores. The novel's themes are universal and its execution ingenious—a masterwork of twentieth-century literary art from an author whom John Updike called “one of the profoundest of the late moderns.”
Copies
No copies available.
A Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)
In this inspired book, the eminent Polish author Witold Gombrowicz reflects on seven great philosophers
Witold Gombrowicz (1904–1969), novelist, essayist, and playwright, was one of the most important Polish writers of the twentieth century. A candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, he was described by Milan Kundera as “one of the great novelists of our century” and by John Updike as “one of the profoundest of the late moderns.”
Gombrowicz’s works were considered scandalous and subversive by the ruling powers in Poland and were banned for nearly forty years. He spent his last years in France teaching philosophy; this book is a series of reflections based on his lectures. Gombrowicz discusses Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Heidegger in six “one-hour” essays and addresses Marxism in a shorter, “fifteen-minute,” piece. The text—a literary gem full of sardonic wit, brilliant insights, and provocative criticism—constructs the philosophical lineage of his work.
Copies
No copies available.
Ferdydurke (Margellos World Republic of Letters)
In this bitterly funny novel by the renowned Polish author Witold Gombrowicz, a writer finds himself tossed into a chaotic world of schoolboys by a diabolical professor who wishes to reduce him to childishness. Originally published in Poland in 1937, Ferdydurke became an instant literary sensation and catapulted the young author to fame. Deemed scandalous and subversive by Nazis, Stalinists, and the Polish Communist regime in turn, the novel (as well as all of Gombrowicz’s other works) was officially banned in Poland for decades. It has nonetheless remained one of the most influential works of twentieth-century European literature.
Ferdydurke istranslated here directly from the Polish for the first time. Danuta Borchardt deftly captures Gombrowicz’s playful and idiosyncratic style, and she allows English speakers to experience fully the masterpiece of a writer whom Milan Kundera describes as “one of the great novelists of our century.”
Copies
No copies available.
Pornografia: A Novel
One of the indisputable totems of twentieth-century world literature, Witold Gombrowicz wrote Pornografia after leaving his native Poland for Argentina in 1939 and then watching from afar as the German invasion destroyed his country. Translated for the first time into English from the original Polish by award-winning translator Danuta Borchardt, Pornografia is one of Gombrowicz’s highest regarded works—a richly imagined tale of violence and carnality set in wartime Poland. In the midst of the German occupation, two aging intellectuals travel to a farm in the countryside, looking for a respite from the hellish scene in Warsaw. They quickly grow bored of their bucolic surroundings—that is, until they are hypnotized by a pair of country youths who have grown up alongside each other at the farm. The older men are determined to orchestrate a tryst between the two teenagers, but they are soon distracted by a string of violent developments, including an order from the underground movement for the men to assassinate a rogue resistance captain who has sought refuge with them. The erotic games are put on hold—until the two dissolute intellectuals find a way to involve their pawns in the murderous plot.
Copies
No copies available.
Pornografia: A Novel
The place is Poland, in the early years of the German occupation. Pornografia's narrator, an author named Witold Gombrowicz, meets a swarthy and overly formal man named Fyderyk at a Warsaw house party, and the two soon become engaged in a business of a dubious (if not downright criminal) nature. When an acquaintance of theirs, a corpulent provincial landowner named Hipolit, requests that they come stay with him to discuss some of his city affairs, it is not hard to convince them to leave the claustrophobic city for the fresh air of the countryside.
Once in the country, however, Fryderyk and Witold quickly bore of their surroundings -- all of their surroundings, that is, but the two teenagers who are staying on Hipolit's farm: Henia, Hipolit's daughter; and Karol, the son of one of the farmhands, who has just returned from a stint in the Polish resistance movement. Both sixteen years old, they have known each other all their lives, and interact as naturally and indifferently as siblings. Witold, however, begins to obsess over their budding sexuality, and imposes on their every interaction an erotic twist that leaves him half-crazed with voyeuristic lust. He is convinced that Karol and Henia must go to bed with each other, and it soon becomes apparent that Fryderyk has the same idea; as their time at the farm progresses, both men turn seemingly innocent interactions with the two teenagers into a sort of erotic chess game. Small pretenses for contact between the young folks -- pointing out that Karol's pant cuffs are dragging in the dirt, for instance, and asking Henia to roll them up for him -- become fantastic acts pregnant with innuendo and possibility. The fact that Henia is engaged to a respectable (if dandyish) older man only makes the game more interesting. Communicating his intentions to Witold through a series of letters left under a brick near the farm's edge, Fryderyk begins to slowly undermine Henia's engagement. He tells the teenagers that he is directing a play, and asks them to mimic a slightly suggestive scene for him -- and then arranges for Witold to bring Henia's fiance, Vaclav, nearby at the most provocative moment. Vaclav of course misinterprets what he sees, and begins to sink into paranoia and suspicion of his young bride-to-be.
Two incidents of violence temporarily disrupt Witold and Fryderyk's games. First, Vaclav's mother is stabbed to death by a young thief in front of all the farm's residents. The tragedy leaves Vaclav even more unstable, and everyone involved shaken.
The second situation arises when a senior commander in the resistance named Siemian comes to stay at the farm for a few days. Karol has served with him, and snaps to attention immediately. Not long after Siemian arrives, Hipolit receives a distressing order from the local underground authorities; Siemian has lost his nerve and wants to leave the resistance. His high position makes this simply too compromising, and Hipolit has been commanded to murder his houseguest.
Hipolit enlists the help of his other male guests, but none of them -- Witold, Fryderyk, or Vaclav -- can bring themselves to kill the man. Then Fryderyk stumbles upon an outrageous idea: he will manipulate Karol and Henia, and get them to perform the murder themselves. Sure enough, the two teens are obedient, just as they have been when Henia rolled up Karol's pant cuffs or when they performed a scene from a nonexistent play. The men give the teens a knife (much like the one which killed Vaclav's mother), and instruct them to enter Siemian's room and finish him off.
But something goes very wrong. Vaclav, who has been growing more and more unstable and disconsolate over what he thinks is a love affair between Henia and Karol, has entered Siemian's room before the two teenagers, and murdered the commander himself. He then darkened the room and waited. When the teens knock, Vaclav opens the door -- and Karol, mistaking Vaclav for Siemien, murders him. The narrator's frivolo
Copies
No copies available.
The Possessed
by Albert Camus, Witold Gombrowicz
From “a master of verbal burlesque [and] a connoisseur of psychological blackmail” (John Updike), Witold Gombrowicz’s harrowing and hilarious pastiche of the Gothic novel, now in a new, authoritative English translation
Witold Gombrowicz is considered by many to be Poland’s greatest modernist, and in The Possessed, he demonstrates his playful brilliance and astonishing range by using the familiar tropes of the Gothic novel to produce a darkly funny and lively subversion of the form. With dreams of escaping his small-town existence and the limitations of his class, a young tennis coach travels to the heart of the Polish countryside to train Maja Ochołowska, a beautiful and promising player whose bourgeois family has fallen upon difficult circumstances. Yet as Maja and the young man are alternately drawn to and repulsed by the other, they find themselves embroiled in the fantastic happenings taking place at the dilapidated castle nearby, where a mad prince haunts the halls, and bewitched towels, conniving secretaries, famous clairvoyants, and uncanny doubles conspire to determine the fate of the lovers. Serialized first in Poland in the days preceding the Nazi invasion, and now translated directly into English for the first time by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, The Possessed is a comic jewel, a hair-raising thriller, and a provocative early masterpiece from the acclaimed author of classics like Pornografia and Cosmos.
Copies
-
$17.00
The Possessed
by Albert Camus, Witold Gombrowicz
The Nobel Prize–winning author here adapts Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece for the stage—a rousing invective against nihilism that brings together two of the great literary minds of the last two centuries
When Albert Camus first read Dostoyevsky as a twenty-year-old philosophy student, it was a “soul-shaking experience.” The Possessed, in particular, had a profound effect on the young writer and thinker, who found in the novel an echo of his own disdain for the philosophy of nihilism and its potentially disastrous effects. “In many ways,” he writes in the foreword to the play, “I can claim that I grew up on it and took sustenance from it. For almost twenty years, in any event, I have visualized its characters on the stage.”
To complete this labor of love, Camus drew on hundreds of pages from Dostoyevsky’s The Notebooks for The Possessed, which document the Russian master’s torturous writing process, taking care all the while to preserve the “thread of suffering and affection that makes Dostoyevsky’s universe so close to each of us.” As a result, he breathed new life into the enigmatic Stavrogin, the gentle Shatov, and the God-haunted Kirilov, bringing us face to face with Dostoyevsky’s creations.
When it was finally performed, in 1959—with Camus himself directing—the play ran to four hours long and was an artistic and technical triumph, featuring thirty-three actors and seven sets. The last finished work before Camus’s death, The Possessed stands as an enduring literary statement about human existence in which the conscience of the twentieth century meets and defines in contemporary terms the conscience of the nineteenth century.
Copies
-
$17.00
Cosmos: A Novel
Milan Kundera called Witold Gombrowicz one of the great novelists of our century.” His most famous novel, Cosmos, the recipient of the 1967 International Prize for Literature, is now available in a critically acclaimed translation, for the first time directly from the Polish, by the award-winning translator Danuta Borchardt.
Cosmos is a metaphysical noir thriller narrated by Witold, a seedy, pathetic, and witty student, who is charming and appalling by turns. On his way to a relaxing vacation he meets the despondent Fuks. As they set off together for a family-run pension in the Carpathian Mountains they discover a dead bird hanging from a string. Is this a strange but meaningless occurrence or is it the beginning of a string of bizarre events? As the young men become embroiled in the Chekhovian travails of the family running the pension, Grombrowicz creates a gripping narrative where the reader questions who is sane and who is safe?
Copies
No copies available.
Kind of Testament (Polish Literature Series)
"Gombrowicz is one of the most original and gifted writers of the twentieth century: he belongs at the very summit, at the side of his kindred spirits, Kafka and Celine." The Washington Post
Copies
No copies available.
Possessed: The Secret of Myslotch
"Smuggling the most up-to-the-minute contraband in antiquated charabancs-that's what I like doing," Gombrowicz said of his work and in this later day Gothic novel he uses all the traditional paraphernalia of haunted castles, mad prince, and riddle from the past to tell the very modern story of two young people caught up in a drama of shifting identities.
Copies
No copies available.
Trans-Atlantyk
Trans-Atlantyk Text by Witold Gombrowicz Translated by Carolyn French and Nina Karsov Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969), novelist, essayist, and playwright, is considered by many to be the most important Polish writer of the twentieth century. Author of four novels, several plays, and a highly acclaimed Diary, he was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature in 1968. Trans-Atlantyk is a semi-autobiographical, satirical novel that throws into heightened perspective all of Gombrowicz's major literary, philosophical, psychological, and social concerns. First published in Paris in 1953, it is based on the author's experience of being caught in Argentina at the outbreak of World War II. The narrator finds himself alone, without family and friends, at odds with the Argentinian literary world and with Polish émigré society. Throughout the book, Gombrowicz ridicules the self-centered pomposity of the Polish community in Argentina. More than this, he explores with prophetic vision the modern predicament of exile and displacement in a disintegrating world. "Gombrowicz's language-abetted by this ingenious translation-subverts language and ideas to a cosmic meltdown, as if in a fun-house mirror. Gombrowicz manages to befuddle, amuse, insult and astonish with this tale of exile, uprootedness and identity." ~ Susan Miron, Boston Globe Witold Gombrowicz has received high praise from his contemporaries-ranging from Milan Kundera, who called him "one of the great novelists of our century," to John Updike, who asserted he was "one of the profoundest of the late moderns." His other novels, Ferdydurke, Pornografia, and Cosmos, his plays, and the three-volume Diary have together been translated into over thirty languages. Publishing Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1995 SoftCover book measuring 5.5" x 8.25" x 0.25" 122 pages English Language Version
Copies
No copies available.
Cosmos and Pornografia: Two Novels
Here are two major works by the famed Polish novelist and dramatist Witold Gombrowicz. The first, Cosmos, a metaphysical thriller, revolves around an absurd investigation. It is set in provincial Poland and narrated by a seedy, pathetic, and witty student, who is charming and appalling by turns, and whose voice is dense with the richly palpable description that characterizes Gombrowicz's writing. The second, Pornografia, explores the sinister effect the young can have on the old. To serve their own secret eroticism, two aging intellectuals encourage a young couple to commit murder. Although the adolescents are the weapons used to commit the crime, the four become conspirators before the deed is done.
Copies
No copies available.
Bacacay
A balloonist finds himself set upon by erotic lepers…a passenger on a ship notices a human eye on the deck…a group of aristocrats enjoy a vegetarian dish made from human flesh…a virginal young girl gnaws raw meat from a bone…a notorious ruffian is terrorized by a rat. Welcome to the bizarre universe of Witold Gombrowicz, whose legendary short story collection is presented here for the first time in English. These tales, hilarious, disturbing, and brilliantly written, are utterly unique in world literature. After reading them, you’ll never be the same.
Copies
No copies available.