Friederike Felbeck



THIS AUTHOR WROTE

February 22, 2011
In 1963, the Polish novelist and dramatist Witold Gombrowicz sailed from South America to Europe. He was bound for Berlin, where he was to take up a Ford Foundation fellowship, the first of a series of artist residencies meant to initiate a cultural revival of the recently divided city. For Gombrowicz, it was his first journey to Europe in twenty-three years. In his journal, he describes an extraordinary encounter: at the break of dawn, northeast of the Canary Islands, he sees in a distance the ship of Chrobry, sailing on her maiden voyage from the Polish harbor Gdynia to Argentina. Gombrowicz was on board as a correspondent. Bound to spend a short period abroad and then return. read more