A variety of gender studies are flourishing in Poland, although their reach and influence outside of Poland is limited by their usually being written in Polish. An English-language monograph on “non-normative identities” in twentieth-century Polish literature can be seen as a very welcome addition to global gender studies (p. 1). In his book entitled Queer Transgressions in Twentieth-Century Polish Fiction: Gender, Nation, Politics, Jack J. B. Hutchens tackles two goals. On the one hand, he proposes close readings of a number of “transgressive” literary texts that span the decades from the 1930s to the present. On the other, he openly states that, though “idealistic,” he wishes “to [intervene] into both Polish culture and politics” (p. 1). Scholarly works rarely have political objectives.
Chapters 1 through 4 constitute the close readings. Hutchens begins by comparing Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz's “The Teacher” [Nauczyciel] (1936) with Witold Gombrowicz's Trans-Atlantyk (1953). Iwaszkiewicz's realistic short story...
