Synopses & Reviews
Review
"I am absolutely sure that this translation will be considered a great event in American intellectual life." --Stanislaw Baranczak
Review
"Having this book in my hands, I felt a joy at the thought that strong personalities like that of Gombrowicz, sooner or later find recognition thanks to the sheer intensity of their existence." --Czeslaw Milosz,
New York Review of BooksReview
"The
Diary is truly a work of magisterial proportions—in scale, depth, range, intimacy, originality, provocativeness. . . . Indeed there are some for whom the
Diary stands even higher than Gombrowicz's own fiction."
—Louis Iribarne
Synopsis
This is the first English translation of Witold Gombrowicz's Diary, the most Polish and the most universal of his works.
About the Author
Witold Marian Gombrowicz (August 4, 1904 in Maloszyce, Swietokrzyskie Voivodeship, Congress Poland, Russian Empire – July 24, 1969 in Vence, near Nice, France) was a Polish novelist and dramatist. His works are characterized by deep psychological analysis, a certain sense of paradox and an absurd, anti-nationalist flavor. In 1937 he published his first novel, Ferdydurke, which presented many of his usual themes: the problems of immaturity and youth, the creation of identity in interactions with others, and an ironic, critical examination of class roles in Polish society and culture. He gained fame only during the last years of his life, but is now considered one of the foremost figures of Polish literature.
Table of Contents
Introduction by Wojciech Karpinski
1953
1954
1955
1956
Against Poets
Sienkiewicz
Afterword by Jan Kott