A watchmaker-dynamitard: From the Gałąź zachodnia [The Western Branch] archive

An unpublished essay about Haupt found in the critic’s archive: it is a chapter from a book titled Gałąź Zachodnia [The Western Branch] on Polish émigré literature, ready to print in 1990, but never published. The essay discusses the distinct features of Zygmunt Haupt’s prose, such as its artistic and musical qualities, complex narrative structure, (false) auto-biographical tropes, hidden erudition, historical landscape, cinematic techniques, borderland and Mediterranean themes, and references to adventure novels. Haupt’s prose is also com-pared with the works of Andrzej Bobkowski, which allows the critic to discuss the contradiction, also emphasized in the title of the essay, between Haupt’s anarchist tendencies and his quest for perfection and precision in a work of art.