Gombrowicz in Transnational Context: Translation, Affect, and Politics(Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature)

Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969) was born and lived in Poland for the first half of his life but spent twenty-four years as an émigré in Argentina before returning to Europe to live in West Berlin and finally Vence, France. His works have always been of interest to those studying Polish or Argentinean or Latin American literature, but in recent years the trend toward a transnational perspective in scholarship has brought his work to increasing prominence. Indeed, the complicated web of transnational contact zones where Polish, Argentinean, French and German cultures intersect to influence his work is now seen as the appropriate lens through which his creativity ought to be examined. This volume contributes to the transnational interpretation of Gombrowicz by bringing together a distinguished group of North American, Latin American, and European scholars to offer new analyses in three distinct themes of study that have not as yet been greatly explored — Translation, Affect and Politics. How does one translate not only Gombrowicz’s words into various languages, but the often cultural-laden meaning and the particular style and tone of his writing? What is it that passes between author and reader that causes an affect? How did Gombrowicz’s negotiation of the turbulent political worlds of Poland and Argentina shape his writing? The three divisions of this collection address these questions from multiple perspectives, thereby adding significantly to little known aspects of his work.

Table of Contents:
Entry

About the Author :
Silvia G. Dapía is Professor of Modern Languages at John Jay College, City University of New York, and the CUNY Graduate Center. She received her PhD degree from the University of Cologne, Germany. She is the author of Die Rezeption der Sprachkritik Fritz Mauthners im Werk von Jorge Luis Borges (Böhlau, 1993) and Jorge Luis Borges, Post-Analytic Philosophy, and Representation (Routledge, 2015), and guest editor of an issue of The Polish Review on Witold Gombrowicz and an issue of Polish American Studies on Poles in Latin America.

Review :
"All in all, this is an impressive anthology, with trailblazing chapters, yet with enough different entry points that it would interest almost any Gombrowicz reader." - Alexander Lindskog, University of Chicago