Witold Gombrowicz himself :
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“It always amuses me, this facetious, sclerotic, baroque, absurd Trans-Atlantyk, written in an archaic style, full of idiomatic jokes and inventions. […]
“Trans-Atlantyk was born in me like a Pan Tadeusz in reverse. This epic poem, written by Mickiewicz in exile over a hundred years ago, the masterpiece of Polish poetry, is an assertion of the Polish spirit inspired by nostalgia. In Trans-Atlantyk I wanted to do the opposite to Mickiewicz. As you see, I always make sure that I am in the best possible company!” —A Kind of Testament: Interviews with Dominique de Roux [Trans. Hamilton]  |
Stanisław Baranczak:
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“Great as Gombrowicz’s earlier and later novels are, Trans-Atlantyk surpasses them […] the ingenious polyphony of Trans-Atlantyk owes its striking effect to Gombrowicz’s use of stylization. A work of art achieves true greatness when the author invents a crucial device and utilizes it so magnificently that no one can successfully imitate it later.
This is precisely what happens in Trans-Atlantyk. Gombrowicz’s chief stroke of genius while planning the novel was his choice of the specific style to imitate—a style which, one imagines, initially must have sounded bizarre even to him. The story of the twentieth-century Polish writer defecting to Argentina in the first days of the Second World War was to be told, from first to last, in a language and style typical of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Polish country squire.” —Introduction to Trans-Atlantyk [Trans. French and Karsov] |
Trans-Atlantyk staged by Janusz Oprynski, Teatr Prowizorium, Lublin, 2004.