With the participation of Włodzimierz Bolecki, Katerina Kokinova, and publisher Dani Radichkov

This novel by Witold Gombrowicz (1904–1969), one of the most interesting and avant-garde writers in world literature, is written in a unique and inimitable style. Singular in the world of literature, this masterpiece remains one of the author’s most important and famous works.

Originally published in Poland in late 1937, Ferdydurke immediately became a literary sensation, but was denounced as scandalous and undermined by the Polish communist regime. All of Gombrowicz’s works were officially banned in Poland for decades, even as he himself was nominated for the Nobel Prize. Ferdydurke is one of the most influential works of European literature, and Milan Kundera called its author “one of the great novelists of our century.”

The talk will be followed by the lecture “A Bird’s Eye View of Witold” by the Polish literary theorist Prof. Włodzimierz Bolecki.

Professor Włodzimierz Bolecki (Institute for Literary Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw)—Gombrowiczologist, literary historian, theorist, critic, and winner of a number of awards and honors, including the Kazimierz Wyka Literary Criticism Award (2007). The critical edition of Ferdydurke is his achievement, and he is the compiler of the Posthumous Autobiography of Witold Gombrowicz, which rearranges fragments of the Polish nobleman’s Diary and Testament. The author of critical editions of significant names in Polish literature of the 20th century, Prof. Bolecki also has a number of studies (some of which are known in Bulgarian as well) on Wat, Witkacy, Schulz, Gombrowicz, and Herling-Grudziński.

Lecture in Polish with translation provided.

Organizers: The Polish Institute, Nike Publishing