Born: August 4, 1904, Maloszyce, Austro-Hungarian partition of Poland (presently Ukraine)
Died: July 24, 1969, Vence, France
Early days. Witold Gombrowicz was born to a noble family. His father, Jan-Onufry was a wealthy lawyer, landowner and chairman of an industrial association; mother – Antonina Marcela Kotkowska, daughter of a landowner. Witold was raised Catholic and studied with private tutors and at an aristocratic Catholic school in Warsaw.
Higher education. He studied law in Warsaw University from 1922 to 1927 and graduated as master of law. . From 1927 to 1929 he studied philosophy and economics at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales in Paris. But he neglected his studies and, when his father cut off his allowance, Witold reluctantly began training to become a lawyer in Warsaw. Here he began frequenting literary cafes and writing short stories -- the first writings he did not destroy.
After finishing his education, he was employed by Polish Ministry of International Affairs as a translator. There he met Wladyslaw Giedroyc who became his best friend.
First publications. In 1935 he published several short novels found strange and unpopular in Warsaw’s cultural establishment. In 1938 he has written a play “Iwona the Princess of Burgundy.” His first success was a novel Ferdydurke which became famous because of strong criticism by nationalistic part of Warsaw’s establishment. On the other hand, more recently, this novel was called (Susan Sontag) "one of the most important overlooked books of the 20th Century."
Stay in Argentina. Several days before World War II he bought a ticket for a trial trip of the very first Polish transatlantic ship Stefan Batory. During this trip Germany suddenly invaded Poland. Stafan Batory's trip was finished in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where all civilian passengers of the trip were forced to take off. First, Gombrowicz was invited by the Argentinian part of his friend Giedroyc's family, to wait for the end of war in their estate, but after German invasion of France, it started to be obvious that the war might take some time. Gombrowicz settled down in Buenos Aires for the next 25 years. The story of his first years in exile is "documented" in the hilarious play "Transatlantyk", He was working as a teacher of French language in a private secondary school. At the same time, he met his future wife Rita, who was a member of Buenos Aires artistic bohemia. After World War II Gombrowicz as a son of rich landowner didn’t want to go back Poland ruled by communist government.
Ferdydurke. In 1957 the Communist regime in Poland briefly lifted its ban on Gombrowicz’s work (in place since the Nazi invasion of 1939) and Ferdydurke was reissued. It was interpreted as an insightful premonition of totalitarianism and became an overnight success. Other publications followed, as did stage performances of his plays -- which were compared to Beckett and Ionesco. A new ban in 1958 removed his work from Polish shelves, but not before they gained notice in the west. In late '50 Trans-Atlantyk was – translated to French by Giedroyc - was put on stage in Paris and the drama was found very interesting by many French theatre critics and Gombrowicz became relatively famous in France.
A Ford Foundation grant in 1963 permitted Gombrowicz to leave Argentina at last to spend a year in Berlin . In 1965 Gombrowicz left Argentina and after a brief visit to Paris his asthma drove him to the south of France, where he lived in Vence. Though his works have been translated into 30 languages, he remains largely unknown outside of Europe.
Awards. He won the prestigious International Prize for Literature in 1967 for Cosmos (his novel Pornografia previously missed the prize in 1960 by one vote) and was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in 1968. In his journals he was uncompromising in defrocking imposters and poseurs; every page of the Diaries (written 1939-1967) contains some sparkling insight that transcends the cultural or historical particulars of which he wrote.
The asthma reduced him to near speechlessness and also affected his heart. Though he survived the first heart attack, the second took his life at midnight on July 24, 1969.
This article uses, among others, material from the Wikipedia article "Witold Gombrowicz" licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. :
Wikipedia
See also other sources:
Columbia Encyclopedia
Alan Gullette
English translations of some of his works:
Constance J. Ostrowski
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