Witold Gombrowicz’s second novel published during his lifetime, the faux-epic
Trans-Atlantyk, is a work unlike any other in modern Polish literature. Written during the Second World War and the immediate post-war years, its author desperately poor and marooned in Argentina, the novel appeared on the scene in 1953 as the antithesis of what was long expected of a Polish writer in times of urgent national trouble.
The manuscript was composed in Buenos Aires and in coastal Argentinean resort towns during the early 1950s, based on notes compiled throughout the 1940s. It was published in an expatriate Polish journal, Kultura, part of the émigré Instytut Literacki imprint based in Paris and presided over by Jerzy Giedroyc, a notable presence on the interwar Polish literary and publishing
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Citation: Gasyna, George. "Trans-Atlantyk". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 October 2020 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=29111, accessed 16 October 2024.]
