Additional information
by Witold Gombrowicz (Author), Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Translator), Adam Thirlwell (Introduction by)
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
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 Ocholowska, 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.
Author Biography
Witold Gombrowicz
(1904-1969) is one of the twentieth century's most important modernists and
enduring avant-garde writers. His first novel, Ferdydurke, was published
in Poland in 1937, and he lived in exile in Argentina from the beginning of
World War II to 1963. Among many literary works, he is the author of his
three-volume Diaries, as well as the novels Trans-Atlantyk, Pornografia,
and Cosmos, winner of the 1967 International Prize for Literature.
