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THE
POSSESSED
WITOLD GOMBROWICZ
TRANSLATED BY ANTONIA LLOYD-JONES
WITH A PREFACE BY ADAM THIRLWELL
In The Possessed, Witold Gombrowicz, considered by
many to be Poland's greatest modernist, drew together
the familiar tropes of the Gothic novel to produce a
darkly funny and playful subversion of the form. With
dreams of escaping his small-town existence and the
limitations of his status, a young tenant farmer travels
to the heart of the Polish countryside where he comes to
train Maja Ocholowska, a beautiful and promising
player whose bourgeois family has fallen upon difficult
circumstances. But no sooner has he arrived than the
relationship with his pupil develops into one of twisted
love and hate, and he becomes embroiled in the fantastic
happenings taking place at the dilapidated castle
nearby. Haunted kitchens, bewitched towels, scheming
secretaries and famous clairvoyants all conspire to
determine the fate of the young lovers and the mad prince
residing in the castle. Translated clinically into English
for the first time by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, The Possessed
is a comic masterpiece that, despite being a literary
pastiche, has all the hallmarks of Gombrowicz's unique
provocative style.
"One of the great novelists of our century."
- Milan Kundera