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Witold Gombrowicz. Trans-Atlantyk. Carolyn French, Nina Karsov, trs. Stanislaw Baranczak, intro. New Haven, Ct. Yale University Press. 1994. xxx + 122 pages.
There are many different ways to tell a story. Witold Gombrowicz (1904-69), the Polish novelist stranded in Argentina when World War II broke out in his native country in 1939, decided on a very unusual type of narration about his adventures in a foreign land, modeling it on an eighteenth-century genre known in Polish literature as gaweda, a nobleman's tale intended for a live audience.
Originally published in 1954, his novel Trans-Atlantyk resisted good translations due to its stylistic peculiarities until two brave souls,...