15 October 2013 We have it in writing – a night presentation of manuscripts at WL
On the 24th of October, readers will have the one and only opportunity to see Kronos just as Rita Gombrowicz discovered it years ago. Wydawnictwo Literackie is organising a special night presentation of the manuscripts of the text, the premiere of which provoked a real storm in the spring of 2013. It will take place in the publishing house’s seat at ul. Długa 1. Gombrowicz again provoked and triggered a fierce facial expression duel – critics went to battle trying to figure out whether this is literature or not, voices of delight, acknowledgement, and outrage clashed. The event will last from 8 p.m. until midnight. It is, of course, organised as part of the Conrad Festival taking place in Krakow at the time.
Works on Kronos lasted for several years. The preparation of Gombrowicz’s private notes to come out into the world was a huge undertaking and an editorial challenge. An entire team of people under Professor Jerzy Jarzębski worked to decipher Witold Gombrowicz’s private notes. They included eminent long-standing researchers of the works of the author of Dziennik (Diary): Klementyna Suchanow, PhD; Professor Zdzisław Łapiński; Wojciech Karpiński, PhD; Professor Henryk Markiewicz, and others. The entire project was overseen by Rita Gombrowicz. “I think that this is one of the most beautiful manuscripts I have ever seen. It was moving to look at Gombrowicz’s beautiful writing. Gombrowicz’s power lies in the fact that he presented himself in all his humanity, both his passions and his misery” – says Rita Gombrowicz.
Today, we give voice to the text itself – in whole, without editorial corrections, footnotes, with no alterations, in a form it came out from under Witold Gombrowicz’s pen. We would like to invite you to the only night presentation of the complete manuscript of the most sensational book of the decade. The exhibition entitled We have it in writing opens at 8 p.m. Visitors are welcome until midnight.
Kronos will be the central theme of the exhibition, but that night, readers will also be able to see the rarely-presented manuscripts of Stanisław Lem and Jan Józef Szczepański. But there is more. During the We have it in writing exhibition, several other additional attractions are planned – Jerzy Stuhr’s unique diary will be presented for the first time.
The next day, the 25th of October at 12 p.m., Rita Gombrowicz and the President of the Supervisory Board of Wydawnictwo Literackie, Vera Michalska-Hoffmann will hand over the manuscript of Kronos to the Director of the National Library in Warsaw, Tomasz Makowski, PhD, at the seat of Wydawnictwo Literackie. The text will be placed in the library’s archive. Starting on the 17th of October, a facsimile edition of the manuscripts of Kronos will be available in bookstores – in a beautiful graphic layout, an album format, with an introduction by Rita Gombrowicz, and footnotes and afterword by Professor Jerzy Jarzębski.
