In 1937, he published his first novel, Ferdydurke, which presented many of his usual themes: problems of immaturity and youth, creation of identity in interactions with others, and an ironic, critical examination of class roles in Polish society and culture.

[3] Gombrowicz was born in Małoszyce near Opatów, then in Radom Governorate, Congress Poland, Russian Empire, to a wealthy gentry family.

In an autobiographical piece, A Kind of Testament, he wrote that his family had lived for 400 years in Lithuania on an estate between Vilnius and Kaunas but were displaced after his grandfather was accused of participating in the January Uprising of 1863.

After completing his education at Saint Stanislaus Kostka's Gymnasium in 1922, Gombrowicz studied law at Warsaw University, earning a MJur in 1927.

[7] Just before the outbreak of the Second World War, Gombrowicz took part in the maiden voyage of the Polish transatlantic liner MS Chrobry to South America.

[8] When he learned of the outbreak of war in Europe, he decided to wait in Buenos Aires until it was over; he reported to the Polish legation in 1941 but was considered unfit for military duties.

In 1950 he started exchanging letters with Jerzy Giedroyc, and in 1951 he began to publish work in the Parisian journal Culture, in which fragments of Dziennik (Diaries) appeared in 1953.

In the same year he published a volume of work that included Ślub and the novel Trans-Atlantyk, in which the subject of national identity on emigration was controversially raised.

In his later serialised Diary (1953–69) he wrote about his adventures in the homosexual underworld of Buenos Aires, particularly his experiences with young men from the lower class, a theme he picked up again when interviewed by Dominique de Roux in A Kind of Testament (1973).

He went back to France in 1964 and spent three months in Royaumont Abbey, near Paris, where he met Rita Labrosse, a Canadian from Montreal who studied contemporary literature.

[18] Gombrowicz wrote in Polish, but he did not allow his works to be published in Poland until the authorities lifted the ban on the unabridged version of Dziennik, his diary, in which he described their attacks on him.

Gombrowicz's clear and precise descriptions criticise Polish Romanticism, and he once claimed he wrote in defiance of Adam Mickiewicz (especially in Trans-Atlantic).

For many critics and theorists, the most engaging aspects of Gombrowicz's work are the connections with European thought in the second half of the 20th century, which link him with the intellectual heritage of Foucault, Barthes, Deleuze, Lacan, and Sartre.

In the story "Pamiętnik z okresu dojrzewania" Gombrowicz engages in paradoxes that control the entrance of the individual into the social world and the repressed passions that rule human behaviour.

In Ferdydurke he discusses form as a universal category that is understood in philosophical, sociological, and aesthetic senses, and is a means of enslavement of the individual by other people and society as a whole.

He also critically undertook the theme of the romantic theatre (Zygmunt Krasiński, Juliusz Słowacki) and portrayed a new concept of power and a human being created by other people.

If I were to designate a worthy successor to the Joyful science of Nietzschean criticism and poetry in twentieth century literature, I would answer: Gombrowicz in his Diary" (Wojciech Karpiński).

It is not only Gombrowicz's record of life but also a philosophical essay, polemic, collection of auto-reflection on folk poetry, views on politics, national culture, religion, tradition, and many other themes.

Ferdydurke presents many themes explored in his later work: the problems of immaturity and youth, the masks people wear, and an ironic, critical examination of class roles in Polish society and culture, specifically the nobility and provincials.

Gombrowicz is remembered by scholars and admirers as a writer and a man unwilling to sacrifice his imagination or his originality for any price, person, god, society, or doctrine.