The Witold Gombrowicz Museum in Wsola presents the original manuscripts of the mostly published correspondence in Spanish are presented, accompanied by their translations into Polish.
Goma
Witold Gombrowicz met Juan Carlos Gómez in Argentina in 1956, 17 years after his arrival in Buenos Aires. Gómez, who has passed away last year, was one of the Polish writer's closest friends, described by Gombrowicz as the "Argentine most acquainted with my world who knows many of my secrets". Henryk Bereza, an essayist and Poland's pope of literary criticism, hailed him the spiritual succesor of Gombrowicz, who had coined the moniker "faithful Goma".
Their correspondence, obtained by the musuem from Gómez in 2011, amounts to 53 sheets of paper and letters, written between 1957 and 1965. It began in Argentina and continued after Gombrowicz's return to Europe in 1963 – first from Germany, then from France. A majority of these letters remain unpublished in Poland.
Content
The correspondence proves an excellent source of information on the everyday life of Gombrowicz in Europe, where he struggled to find his place after the 24 years he spent in Argentina. The letters contain interesting biographical material as well as observations of everyday customs and habits. They are also more direct, at times even more brutally sharp, than the literary, stylised notes in the writer’s renowned Diary. Gombrowicz describes his erotic preferences, money and mutual acquaintances, with no mercy:
Poor Goma, you are unaware of one thing: I had been hiding before you, in part in order to spare you, and in part so as to avoid questioning, etc., that since the moment that I left Argentina, I haven’t had a single good day. (…) You, and also Ada think that I am lazily streched out on a bed of roses, and what’s more, together with Rita. And meanwhile, I am exhausting myself here bit by bit in each direction. In the last resort, maybe it is not all that dramatic. There are moments of good humour. But – my friend – I have never resembled an egoistic and demonic monster more than I do now.
Bye,
W.G.
Now I weigh 68 kg
I w e i g h e d 83 kg
[published in Zofia Chądzyńska’s Polish translation from Spanish by the Zeszyty Literackie series, 1995, nr.1, pg. 105]
The exhibition and beyond
The Gombrowicz Museum presents original manuscripts and also makes available Polish translations of the writer's letters, previously released in literary magazines. The Och, Gumo, żebyś Pan wiedział... / Oh, Goma, if only you knew... exhibition opens on the 8th of April 2013, exactly 50 years after Gombrowicz’s departure from Argentina, where he had spent nearly 24 years of his life – from August 1939 to April 1963. The exhibition concludes on the 28th of April with a lecture on the writer’s Argentine friendships and bonds, presented by the author Klementyna Suchanow, whose research covers the Argentine period of Gombrowicz’s life and work.
In May, the widow of the writer, Rita Gombrowicz, pays a visit to the museum, accompanied by the theatre director Jorge Lavelli, acclaimed for the Berlin and Paris premieres of Gombrowicz’s play The Wedding, and Krystyna Zachwatowicz, who designed that the sets for that acclaimed production. The museum will screen the premiere of the documentary film Zabijcie Witolda / Kill Witold, directed by Agnieszka Herbich and Lucas Trajtengartz. The film includes testimonies of the last living witnesses of Gombrowicz’s Argentine life, and was commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Och, Gumo, żebyś Pan wiedział... / Oh, Goma, if only you knew... exhibition is open from the 8th until the 28th of April 2013.
The Witold Gombrowicz Museum in Wsola
Wsola ul. Witolda Gombrowicza 1
26-660 Jedlińsk
tel. +48 321 50 73
muzeum-gombrowicza@muzeumliteratury.pl
Mikołaj Gliński,
Translated by Paulina Schlosser, source: Muzeum Witolda Gombrowicza we Wsoli, muzeumliteratury.pl, press release, 09.04.2013