WITKIEWICZ, Stanislaw Ignacy

(1885-1939)

   Polish playwright, novelist and painter, who also signed himself Witkacy; he committed suicide just after the Nazi invasion of his country when he learned that Soviet armies had attacked from the east, the direction in which he was fleeing. Much of his work, some eerily prophetic, deals darkly and humorously with the theme of a conservative world suddenly subjected to change, the clash of cultures, apocalypse and future totalitarianism. Of his 30 surviving plays, the most notable in this vein include the DYSTOPIAN fantasy Gyubal Wahazar, czyli Na przeleczach besensu ("Gyubal Wahazar, or Along the Cliffs of the Absurd") (written 1921; 1962), Matwa, czyli Hyrkanicznyswiatopoglad ("TheCuttlefish, or The Hyrcanian World View") (written 1922; 1923), and most of the violent dramas of a surreal future assembled in The Madman and the Nun and Other Plays (all written 1920-30, published 1925-62; coll transDaniel C. Gerould and C.S. Durer 1968 US); of these, perhaps the most important is the blackly terrifying Szewcy (written 1930; 1948; here trans as The Shoemakers), which predicts WWII. His 2 published novels are sf: Pozegnanie jesieni ("Farewell to Autumn") (1927) and Nienasycenie (1930;trans Louis Iribarne as Insatiability 1977 US). In the former, Communists take over a future Poland. The latter, set in the 21st century, shows a fractured, ersatz West, a consumer society subject to a growing appetite for novelty, being taken over by Chinese Communists and Eastern mysticism, whose purveyors also provide happy pills. It is a distinguished and important novel. An uncompleted further tale, Jedyne wyjecie ("The Only Way Out") (written 1931-3; 1968), furthers the discourse of itspredecessor. It was not until 1962 that the Polish Government began, gingerly, to publish a collected edition of his work.

   PN/JC

   About the author: Witkacy: Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz as an Imaginative Writer (1981) by Daniel C. Gerould.

   See also: POLAND.