Diary Volume 2

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Northwestern University Press, 1989 - Biography & Autobiography - 245 pages
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. Gombrowicz's "Diary" grew to become a vast collection of essays, short notes, polemics, and confessions on myriad subjects ranging 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.
 

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Contents

1958
21
1959
115
1960
151
1961
209
Copyright

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About the author (1989)

Gombrowicz, son of a wealthy lawyer, studied law at Warsaw University and philosophy and economics in Paris. His first novel, Ferdydurke, with its existential themes and a daring use of surrealistic techniques, became a literary sensation in Warsaw. Yvonne: Princess of Burgundia (1935), which anticipated many themes of the Theater of the Absurd, was also enormously successful; together with another of his plays, The Marriage (1953), it has been staged throughout the world. During the war, Gombrowicz lived in Argentina. In the postwar period, Ferdydurke was at first banned by the Polish authorities (continuing a ban imposed by the Nazis). During the "thaw" it was published in Warsaw in 1957 and its author was hailed as the "greatest living Polish writer" by the critic Sandauer. The ban on Gombrowicz's work was reimposed in 1958. By this time, however, Gombrowicz had achieved a wide reputation in western Europe and the United States.

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