The Possessed

From "a master of

verbal burlesque [and] a connoisseur of psychological blackmail" (John Updike),

Witold Gombrowicz's harrowing and hilarious pastiche of the Gothic novel, now

in a new, authoritative English translation

Witold Gombrowicz is considered by

many to be Poland's greatest modernist, and in The Possessed, he

demonstrates his playful brilliance and astonishing range by using the familiar

tropes of the Gothic novel to produce a darkly funny and lively subversion of

the form. With dreams of escaping his small-town existence and the limitations

of his class, a young tennis coach travels to the heart of the Polish

countryside to train Maja Ocholowska, a beautiful and promising player whose

bourgeois family has fallen upon difficult circumstances. Yet as Maja and the

young man are alternately drawn to and repulsed by the other, they find

themselves embroiled in the fantastic happenings taking place at the

dilapidated castle nearby, where a mad prince haunts the halls, and bewitched

towels, conniving secretaries, famous clairvoyants, and uncanny doubles conspire

to determine the fate of the lovers. Serialized first in Poland in the days

preceding the Nazi invasion, and now translated directly into English for the

first time by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, The Possessed is a comic jewel, a

hair-raising thriller, and a provocative early masterpiece from the acclaimed

author of classics like Pornografia and Cosmos.