'' Trans-Atlantyk '' is a novel by the Polish author

Witold Gombrowicz Witold Marian Gombrowicz (August 4, 1904 – July 24, 1969) was a Polish writer and playwright. His works are characterised by deep psychological analysis, a certain sense of paradox and absurd, anti-nationalist flavor. In 1937 he published his f ...

, originally published in 1953. The semi-autobiographical plot of the novel closely tracks Gombrowicz's own experience in the years during and just after the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Plot

Witold, a

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

writer, embarks on an ocean voyage only to have the war break out while he is visiting

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. Finding himself penniless and stranded after the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

take over his country, he is taken in by the local Polish emigre community. A fantastical series of twists and turns follow in which the young man finds himself, after a debauched night of drinking, involved as a second in a

duel A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon Code duello, rules. During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combats fought with swords (the r ...

. Witold is constantly confronted with the exasperating contrasts between his love of country and his status as a forced expatriate and the shallow

nationalism Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...

of his fellow Poles.

Analysis

The book is an extended examination of what one's nationality is and what it means. The language of ''Trans-Atlantyk'' is unusual, as it is written in the style of a "

gawęda A ''gawęda'' () is a story; especially, one that belongs to a kind of Polish epic literary genre. History ''Gawęda'' is a genre of Polish folk literature. The term also describes a literary work, stylized as an oral tale, characterized by freed ...

," an ancient form of oral storytelling that was common among the rural Polish nobility. As such, it is very much in the tradition of another legendary work by a Polish exile writer, the epic poem ''

Pan Tadeusz ''Pan Tadeusz'' (full title: ''Mister Thaddeus, or the Last Foray in Lithuania: A Nobility's Tale of the Years 1811–1812, in Twelve Books of Verse'') is an epic poem by the Polish poet, writer, translator and philosopher Adam Mickiewicz. The b ...

'', by

Adam Mickiewicz Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (; 24 December 179826 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish Ro ...

. Gombrowicz wrote himself that "''Trans-Atlantic'' was born in me like a Pan Tadeusz in reverse". The 1994 Carolyn French/ Nina Karsov

English-language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

translation uses a sort of faux-seventeenth century English, resulting in a work that the translators themselves regard as "experimental". 1953 novels 20th-century Polish novels Novels by Witold Gombrowicz Novels set during World War II Novels set in Argentina Polish historical novels Polish novels Polish satire Works by Witold Gombrowicz {{1950s-WWII-novel-stub