Talk «Ferdydurke: Hình thức và sự thiếu trưởng thành trong văn chương Ba Lan»

   A thirty-year-old man is dragged back to a school desk and made to live by teenage rules: that absurd set-up opens «Ferdydurke» by Witold Gombrowicz, one of the strangest and most provocative novels of the 20th century. The book has reached Vietnamese readers for the first time, and Hanoi is marking it with a talk. If anyone has ever told you to act your age, this conversation is about you too.

   The occasion is the first Vietnamese translation, made directly from the Polish original by Truong Thu Ha (Trương Thu Hà). The book is released by FORMApubli, which hosts the talk together with the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Hanoi; the talk's title translates as «Form and Immaturity in Polish Literature». Translating straight from Polish is no formality here: the first English edition, in 1961, was put together from the French and German versions, and English-language readers only got a translation from the original in 2000.

   At a glance
— Speakers: writer Hien Trang (Hiền Trang) and Duc Anh (Đức Anh)
— Gombrowicz's place in Polish and world literature
— The novel's key themes: Form, the “face” other people make for us, and immaturity
— The grotesque, laughter and how the novel is built
— The challenges of translating it into Vietnamese
— Questions for the speakers, asked in the room or sent in advance through the registration form

   The talk is for long-time readers of Gombrowicz and Polish literature, and just as much for those hearing his name for the first time who have wondered how other people's eyes, expectations and templates shape a person. Literature students and anyone who translates will get the most out of the part on translation.

   Gombrowicz (1904–1969) published «Ferdydurke», his first novel, in Warsaw in 1937, and it instantly fascinated some readers and outraged others. His close friend Bruno Schulz was among the first to see the book's scale, and Schulz, Witkacy and Gombrowicz are seen as the strange and wonderful trio that pulled Polish literature out of its old moulds. In 1939 Gombrowicz sailed to South America, the war broke out while he was in Buenos Aires, and he stayed in Argentina until 1963. Recognition came late: he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four years running, from 1966 to 1969.

   The venue has a history of its own: the National Library of Vietnam (Thư viện Quốc gia Việt Nam) was founded by a decree of 1917 as the central library of Indochina.

   The question Gombrowicz posed still stands: «Do we create Form, or does Form create us?» Bring your own answer; nearly ninety years after the novel first appeared, it is still far from obvious.