Trans-Atlantyk

Considered by many to be among the greatest writers of the past hundred years, Polish novelist Witold Gombrowicz explores the modern predicament of exile and displacement in a disintegrating world in his acclaimed classic Trans-Atlantyk. Gombrowicz's most personal novel - and arguably his most iconoclastic - Trans-Atlantyk is written in the style of a gaweda, a tale told by the fireside in a language that originated in the seventeenth century. It recounts the often farcical adventures of a penniless young writer stranded in Argentina when the Nazis invade his homeland, and his subsequent "adoption" by the Polish embassy staff and emigre community. Based Loosely on Gombrowicz's own experiences as an expatriate, Trans-Atlantyk is steeped in humour and sharply pointed satire, interlaced with dark visions of war and its horrors, that entreats the individual and society in general to rise above the suffocating constraints of nationalistic, sexual and patriotic mores.

The novel's themes are universal and its execution ingenious - a masterwork of twentieth-century literary art from an author whom John Updike called "one of the profoundest of the late moderns".

"Since 2000, Danuta Borchardt has been engaged with translating the four novels of Witold Gombrowicz published in his lifetime, and the process is now complete with "Trans-Atlantyk". These masterly translations at last provide a satisfying, coherent survey of the author many consider to be among Polish literature's most untranslatable stylists. . .While Borchardt brings a domesticating tendency, smoothing a few purposefully rough edges, her limpid prose is worth it. Gombrowicz's arch humour now punches even harder". - Scott Esposito,