These shattering stories describe the lives of ordinary people as they are compelled to do the unimaginable.

    The first, Cosmos, a metaphysical thriller, revolves around an absurd investigation. It is set in provincial Poland and narrated by a seedy, pathetic, and witty student, who is charming and appalling by turns, and whose voice is dense with the richly palpable description that characterizes Gombrowicz's writing. The second, Pornografia, explores the sinister effect the young can have on the old. To serve their own secret eroticism, two aging intellectuals encourage a young couple to commit murder. Although the adolescents are the weapons used to commit the crime, the four become conspirators before the deed is done.

    Seldom can one overhear so intense an exchange between Euterpe and Clio as in the pages of Tremor." -- Joseph Brodsky

    

    Although sovereign in principle, Poland had been not much more than an object of the Great Powers' politics and their changing interrelationships or rivalries. Essentially, Poland's overall destiny lay in the hands of France, Great Britain, and the United States. Co-published with the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.