Diary. Volumes 1-3
Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988-93. 1st US Edition. 3 vols., octavo, publisher's blue and teal cloth, spine and upper board stamped in white and silver, original illustrated dust jacket (vol. 3.: publisher's illustrated stiff paper wraps).
"After all, art takes place among living, concrete, and, therefore, imperfect people." First editions in English of Polish novelist Witold Gombrowicz’s diaries, from the library of New York novelist and memoirist Sigrid Nunez, author of A Feather On the Breath of God, The Friend, and Sempre Susan, about her relationship with Susan Sontag. Begun in self-exile in Buenos Aires in the early 1950s, the diaries run through 1966, and consist of notes, essays, polemics, revelations, and more on a variety of subjects, including catalogs of his day-to-day activities and moods, feelings about communism and the Polish literary scene, and impassioned opinions on literature. Editor Jerzy Giedroycz published the fragmentary musings in Paris-based Polish literary journal Kultura from 1953 until Gombrowicz’s death in 1969. They were then published in book form, but would not appear in English translation until this edition, nearly twenty years later. Translated by award-winning translator Lillian Vallee under the editorship of Polish activist and critic Jan Kott. Sigrid Nunez's ownership signature to front endpaper of vol. 1. Vols. 1 and 2 are hardcovers, while vol. 3 is the paperback issue. Fine in unclipped dust jackets. Item #5753
$140.00