The Possessed

A darkly funny and subversive Gothic horror novel by Poland’s greatest modernist.

InThe Possessed, Witold Gombrowicz, considered bymany to be Poland’s greatest modernist, draws togetherthe familiar tropes of the Gothic novel to produce adarkly funny and playful subversion of the form. Withdreams of escaping his small-town existence and thelimitations of his status, a young tennis coach travelsto the heart of the Polish countryside where he is totrain Maja Ocholowska, a beautiful and promisingplayer whose bourgeois family has fallen upon difficultcircumstances. But no sooner has he arrived than therelationship with his pupil develops into one of twistedlove and hate, and he becomes embroiled in the fantastichappenings taking place at the dilapidated castlenearby. Haunted kitchens, bewitched towels, connivingsecretaries and famous clairvoyants all conspire todetermine the fate of the young lovers and the mad princeresiding in the castle. Translated directly into Englishfor the first time by Antonia Lloyd-Jones,The Possessedis a comic masterpiece that, despite being a literarypastiche, has all the hallmarks of Gombrowicz’s typicallyprovocative style.