The Possessed

In  The Possessed, Witold Gombrowicz, considered by  many to be Poland’s greatest modernist, draws together  the familiar tropes of the Gothic novel to produce a  darkly funny and playful subversion of the form. With  dreams of escaping his small-town existence and the  limitations of his status, a young tennis coach travels  to the heart of the Polish countryside where he is to  train Maja Ocholowska, a beautiful and promising  player whose bourgeois family has fallen upon difficult  circumstances. But no sooner has he arrived than the  relationship with his pupil develops into one of twisted  love and hate, and he becomes embroiled in the fantastic  happenings taking place at the dilapidated castle  nearby.

Haunted kitchens, bewitched towels, conniving  secretaries and famous clairvoyants all conspire to  determine the fate of the young lovers and the mad prince  residing in the castle. Translated directly into English  for the first time by Antonia Lloyd-Jones,  The Possessed  is a comic masterpiece that, despite being a literary  pastiche, has all the hallmarks of Gombrowicz’s typically  provocative style.