Please join us!
Thursday, May 14, 2026
12:00-1:30pm
Kresge 3-364 Slavic Languages and Literatures seminar room
How to Write a Biography? On Witold Gombrowicz’s Years in Argentina
Join us for a book talk with Mercedes Halfon, author of Outsider Everywhere (2026)—a literary account of Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz’s exile in Argentina and a vivid portrayal of mid-century bohemian life in Buenos Aires. The book was published in English translation by Fitzcarraldo Editions earlier this month. Halfon will discuss her research methods and creative process, and offer a portrait of the controversial Polish writer—once described as “the best author you’ve never heard of”—who has recently been gaining renewed attention in the Anglophone world.
The event will take place in English and Spanish.
Lunch will be served.
Please RSVP to complit@northwestern.edu
Mercedes Halfon is a writer, educator and cultural journalist. Her novels Diario Pinchado and El trabajo de los ojos have been published in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Bolivia, and Spain. She teaches creative writing at the Universidad Nacional de las Artes in Buenos Aires, as well as in private workshops. Her book Extranjero en todas partes. Los días argentinos de Witold Gombrowicz was published in 2023 by Ediciones UDP, in 2025 by Editorial Anagrama, and in 2026 by Fitzcarraldo Editions under the title Outsider Everywhere.
Witold Gombrowicz (1904–1969), one of Poland’s most prominent twentieth-century writers, is known for his experimental prose and grotesque humor. The author of novels and plays such as Ferdydurke (1939), Trans-Atlantyk (1953), and Cosmos (1965), he remained committed to his programmatic aim of rejecting “form”—understood both as literary conventions and as the social norms imposed on individuals. Between 1939 and 1963, he lived in exile in Argentina. In 1968, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Phil Hoskins
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