Witold Gombrowicz's Books

Polish Memories

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Although Witold Gombrowicz’s unique, idiosyncratic writings include a three-volume Diary, this voluminous document offers few facts about his early life in Poland before his books were banned there and he went into voluntary exile. Polish Memories—a series of autobiographical sketches Gombrowicz composed for Radio Free Europe during his years in Argentina in the late 1950s—fills the gap in our knowledge. Written in a straightforward way without his famous linguistic inventions, the book presents an engaging account of Gombrowicz’s childhood, youth, literary beginnings, and fellow writers in interwar Poland and reveals how these experiences and individuals shaped his seemingly outlandish concepts about the self, culture, art, and society. In addition, the book helps readers understand the numerous autobiographical allusions in his fiction and brings a new level of understanding and appreciation to his life and work.

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Page Count

220

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300145667

ISBN 13

9780300145663

Cosmos

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Cosmos

By: Witold Gombrowicz

Two young men meet by chance in a Polish resort town in the Carpathian Mountains. Intending to spend their vacation relaxing, they find a secluded family-run pension. But the two become embroiled first in a macabre event on the way to the pension, then in the peculiar activities and psychological travails of the family running it." -- Cover.

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209

Publisher

Grove Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0802145620

ISBN 13

9780802145628

The Possessed

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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The Possessed

By: Witold Gombrowicz

From “a master of verbal burlesque [and] a connoisseur of psychological blackmail” (John Updike), Witold Gombrowicz’s harrowing and hilarious pastiche of the Gothic novel, now in a new, authoritative English translation Witold Gombrowicz is considered by many to be Poland’s greatest modernist, and in The Possessed, he demonstrates his playful brilliance and astonishing range by using the familiar tropes of the Gothic novel to produce a darkly funny and lively subversion of the form. With dreams of escaping his small-town existence and the limitations of his class, a young tennis coach travels to the heart of the Polish countryside to train Maja Ochołowska, a beautiful and promising player whose bourgeois family has fallen upon difficult circumstances. Yet as Maja and the young man are alternately drawn to and repulsed by the other, they find themselves embroiled in the fantastic happenings taking place at the dilapidated castle nearby, where a mad prince haunts the halls, and bewitched towels, conniving secretaries, famous clairvoyants, and uncanny doubles conspire to determine the fate of the lovers. Serialized first in Poland in the days preceding the Nazi invasion, and now translated directly into English for the first time by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, The Possessed is a comic jewel, a hair-raising thriller, and a provocative early masterpiece from the acclaimed author of classics like Pornografia and Cosmos.

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334

Publisher

Grove Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0802162533

ISBN 13

9780802162533

A Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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A Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes

By: Witold Gombrowicz

George Sand was the most famous, and the most scandalous, woman in nineteenth-century France. As a writer, she was enormously prolific: she wrote more than ninety novels, thirty-five plays, and thousands of pages of autobiography. She inspired writers as diverse as Flaubert and Proust but is often remembered for her love affairs with such figures as Musset and Chopin. Her affair with Chopin is the most notorious: their nine-year relationship ended in 1847 when Sand began to suspect that the composer had fallen in love with her daughter, Solange. Drawing on archival sources, much of it neglected by Sand's previous biographers, Elizabeth Harlan examines the intertwined issues of maternity and identity that haunt Sand's writing and defined her life. Why was Sand's relationship with her daughter so fraught? Why was a woman so famous for her personal and literary audacity ultimately so conflicted about women's liberation? In an effort to solve the riddle of Sand's identity, Harlan examines a latticework of lives that include Solange, Sand's mother and grandmother, and Sand's own protagonists, whose stories amplify her own.

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Page Count

117

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300132069

ISBN 13

9780300132069

Cosmos

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Cosmos

By: Witold Gombrowicz

Milan Kundera called Witold Gombrowicz one of the great novelists of our century. His most famous novel, Cosmos, the recipient of the 1967 International Prize for Literature, is now available in a critically acclaimed translation, for the first time directly from the Polish, by the award-winning translator Danuta Borchardt. Cosmos is a metaphysical noir thriller narrated by Witold, a seedy, pathetic, and witty student, who is charming and appalling by turns. On his way to a relaxing vacation he meets the despondent Fuks. As they set off together for a family-run pension in the Carpathian Mountains they discover a dead bird hanging from a string. Is this a strange but meaningless occurrence or is it the beginning of a string of bizarre events? As the young men become embroiled in the Chekhovian travails of the family running the pension, Grombrowicz creates a gripping narrative where the reader questions who is sane and who is safe?

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224

Published Date

ISBN 10

0785923128

ISBN 13

9780785923121

Ferdydurke

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Ferdydurke

By: Witold Gombrowicz

In this bitterly funny novel by the renowned Polish author Witold Gombrowicz, a writer finds himself tossed into a chaotic world of schoolboys by a diabolical professor who wishes to reduce him to childishness. Originally published in Poland in 1937, Ferdydurke became an instant literary sensation and catapulted the young author to fame. Deemed scandalous and subversive by Nazis, Stalinists, and the Polish Communist regime in turn, the novel (as well as all of Gombrowicz's other works) was officially banned in Poland for decades. It has nonetheless remained one of the most influential works of twentieth-century European literature. Ferdydurke is translated here directly from the Polish for the first time. Danuta Borchardt deftly captures Gombrowicz's playful and idiosyncratic style, and she allows English speakers to experience fully the masterpiece of a writer whom Milan Kundera describes as “one of the great novelists of our century.”

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312

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300164653

ISBN 13

9780300164657

Diary Volume 1

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Diary Volume 1

By: Witold Gombrowicz

Just before the outbreak of World War II, young Witold Gombrowicz left his home in Poland and set sail for South America. In 1953, still living as an expatriate in Argentina, he began his "Diary" with one of literature's most memorable openings. Gombrowicz's "Diary" grew to become a vast collection of essays, short notes, polemics, and confessions on myriad subjects ranging from political events to literature to the certainty of death. Not a traditional journal, "Diary" is instead the commentary of a brilliant and restless mind. Widely regarded as a masterpiece, this brilliant work compelled Gombrowicz's attention for a decade and a half until he penned his final entry in France, shortly before his death in 1969.

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Page Count

249

Publisher

Northwestern University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0810107155

ISBN 13

9780810107151

Diary

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Diary

By: Witold Gombrowicz

Just before the outbreak of World War II, young Witold Gombrowicz left his home in Poland and set sail for South America. In 1953, still living as an expatriate in Argentina, he began his Diary with one of literature's most memorable openings: "Monday Me. Tuesday Me. Wednesday Me. Thursday Me." Gombrowicz's Diary grew to become a vast collection of essays, short notes, polemics, and confessions on myriad subjects ranging from political events to literature to the certainty of death. Not a traditional journal, Diary is instead the commentary of a brilliant and restless mind. Widely regarded as a masterpiece, this brilliant work compelled Gombrowicz's attention for a decade and a half until he penned his final entry in France, shortly before his death in 1969. Long out of print in English, Diary is now presented in a convenient single volume featuring a new preface by Rita Gombrowicz, the author's widow and literary executor. This edition also includes ten previously unpublished pages from the 1969 portion of the diary.

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Page Count

816

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300183399

ISBN 13

9780300183399

Cosmos

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Cosmos

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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209

Publisher

Grove Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0802145620

ISBN 13

9780802145628

Trans-Atlantyk

An Alternate Translation

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Trans-Atlantyk

An Alternate Translation

By: Witold Gombrowicz

A brilliant, semiautobiographical satirical novel from one of the foremost figures in twentieth-century Polish literature, now in a new English translation Considered by many to be among the greatest writers of the past hundred years, Polish novelist Witold Gombrowicz explores the modern predicament of exile and displacement in a disintegrating world in his acclaimed classic Trans-Atlantyk. Gombrowicz's most personal novel--and arguably his most iconoclastic--Trans-Atlantyk is written in the style of a gaweda, a tale told by the fireside in a language that originated in the seventeenth century. It recounts the often farcical adventures of a penniless young writer stranded in Argentina when the Nazis invade his homeland, and his subsequent "adoption" by the Polish embassy staff and émigré community. Based loosely on Gombrowicz's own experiences as an expatriate, Trans-Atlantyk is steeped in humor and sharply pointed satire, interlaced with dark visions of war and its horrors, that entreats the individual and society in general to rise above the suffocating constraints of nationalistic, sexual, and patriotic mores. The novel's themes are universal and its execution ingenious--a masterwork of twentieth-century literary art from an author whom John Updike called "one of the profoundest of the late moderns.

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190

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300175302

ISBN 13

9780300175301

Diary Volume 2

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Diary Volume 2

By: Witold Gombrowicz

Just before the outbreak of World War II, young Witold Gombrowicz left his home in Poland and set sail for South America. In 1953, still living as an expatriate in Argentina, he began his "Diary" with one of literature's most memorable openings. Gombrowicz's "Diary" grew to become a vast collection of essays, short notes, polemics, and confessions on myriad subjects ranging from political events to literature to the certainty of death. Not a traditional journal, "Diary" is instead the commentary of a brilliant and restless mind. Widely regarded as a masterpiece, this brilliant work compelled Gombrowicz's attention for a decade and a half until he penned his final entry in France, shortly before his death in 1969.

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246

Publisher

Northwestern University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0810107171

ISBN 13

9780810107175

A Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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A Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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117

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300132069

ISBN 13

9780300132069

The Possessed

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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The Possessed

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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334

Publisher

Grove Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0802162533

ISBN 13

9780802162533

Bacacay

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Bacacay

By: Witold Gombrowicz

A balloonist finds himself set upon by erotic lepers…a passenger on a ship notices a human eye on the deck…a group of aristocrats enjoy a vegetarian dish made from human flesh…a virginal young girl gnaws raw meat from a bone…a notorious ruffian is terrorized by a rat. Welcome to the bizarre universe of Witold Gombrowicz, whose legendary short story collection is presented here for the first time in English. These tales, hilarious, disturbing, and brilliantly written, are utterly unique in world literature. After reading them, you’ll never be the same.

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Page Count

289

Publisher

Archipelago

Published Date

ISBN 10

1935744143

ISBN 13

9781935744146

A Kind of Testament

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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A Kind of Testament

By: Witold Gombrowicz

A Kind of Testament is part autobiography and part justification of the life's work of one of Poland's most important novelists and playwrights. Written in France in 1968, this personal testimony is more than just a life history or a critique of his work. A Kind of Testament stands as a testament to how Gombrowicz came to be the person and writer that he was and overlap between the two.

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Page Count

178

Publisher

Dalkey Archive Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1564784762

ISBN 13

9781564784766

Polish Memories

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Polish Memories

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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220

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300145667

ISBN 13

9780300145663

Diary Volume 3

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Diary Volume 3

By: Witold Gombrowicz

Just before the outbreak of World War II, young Witold Gombrowicz left his home in Poland and set sail for South America. In 1953, still living as an expatriate in Argentina, he began his "Diary" with one of literature's most memorable openings. Gombrowicz's "Diary" grew to become a vast collection of essays, short notes, polemics, and confessions on myriad subjects ranging from political events to literature to the certainty of death. Not a traditional journal, "Diary" is instead the commentary of a brilliant and restless mind. Widely regarded as a masterpiece, this brilliant work compelled Gombrowicz's attention for a decade and a half until he penned his final entry in France, shortly before his death in 1969.

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Page Count

223

Publisher

Northwestern University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0810107198

ISBN 13

9780810107199

Trans-Atlantyk

An Alternate Translation

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Trans-Atlantyk

An Alternate Translation

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Page Count

190

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300175302

ISBN 13

9780300175301

Trans-Atlantic

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Trans-Atlantic

By: Witold Gombrowicz

Mytomspunnen satirisk roman »Alla Stora ord börjar skramla tomt i denna spexiga slapstick mellan Fadern och Sonen. Trans-Atlantic är en konstens pamflett mot ideologierna.« | Mikael van Reis, GP »Det är en litteratur i världsklass.« | Anna Hallberg, DN När Polen invaderas och andra världskriget bryter ut befinner sig den polske författaren Witold Gombrowicz i Argentina, helt avskuren från hemlandet. Utan pengar i främmande land och omgiven av landsmän vars stela patriotism han inte kan dela tvingas han möta den nya tidens våld. Ungefär här upphör likheten mellan verklighetens och diktens Gombrowicz. Trans-Atlantic är en satir, en språkfest, en skröna, ett fantasifoster, ett piratskepp som vill spränga nationalismen i luften. Som så ofta när Gombrowicz är inblandad vidtar en smått osannolik händelseutveckling. En fest på den polska beskickningen spårar ut i en duell där den unge författaren blir indragen som sekundant. En duell som kommer att handla om så mycket mer: fader mot son, dåtid mot nutid - kanske kan den till slut också peka ut en ny riktning? Den mytomspunna exilromanen Trans-Atlantic, publicerad första gången i sin helhet i Paris 1953, är en uppgörelse med nationalidentiteten som förvandlar själva modersmålet till ett främmande landskap. Gombrowicz skriver en rasande pastisch på en gammal polsk genre, en sorts barockskröna nedtecknad av adelsmän på 1600-talet - hans språk är dansande, grammatiken som förryckt. Att översätta romanen är en fullfjädrad utmaning, som Anders Bodegård bemöter med en suveränt elastisk svenska. För förordet står Jan Stolpe. WITOLD GOMBROWICZ [1904-1969] föddes i Polen men tillbringade en stor del av sitt liv i exil. I hemlandet var han svartlistad under en större del av efterkrigstiden. På sextiotalet kom hans stora internationella genombrott som romanförfattare, novellist. »Varken svårt eller begripligt, men frustande lustigt. Under allt en vilja till uppbrott, förnyelse, en vilt fäktande kamp med språket, formen och existensen, vår korta stund på jorden.« | Fabian Kastner, SvD »Gombrowicz är en av de mest djupsinniga sena modernisterna, med ett av de fjäderlättaste anslagen.« | John Updike

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Page Count

130

Publisher

Modernista

ISBN 10

9177011929

ISBN 13

9789177011927

Diary Volume 2

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Diary Volume 2

By: Witold Gombrowicz

This is the first English translation of Witold Gombrowicz's Diary, the most Polish and the most universal of his works. Volume Two explores a more personal and intimate side of Gombrowicz in his adopted country of Argentina. Gombrowicz takes the readers into salons, homes, encounters in restaurants and theaters, dramatizing and self-dramatizing, turning the Diary into a work blending techniques of fiction and theater.

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Page Count

256

Publisher

Northwestern University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0810107171

ISBN 13

9780810107175

Diary

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Diary

By: Witold Gombrowicz

A landmark autobiography written by a Polish expatriate living in Argentina is presented in a single-volume edition, now with previously unpublished pages restored. Original.

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Page Count

795

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300118066

ISBN 13

9780300118063

Cosmo

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Cosmo

By: Witold Gombrowicz

Due uomini arrancano nel solleone di una campagna polacca che ronza di canicola e insetti. Arrancano e arrancano, tra boschi neri di ombre, campi neri di terra, siepi nere di sterpi. Lungo la strada un passero penzola incapestrato al ramo di un albero, con il becco aperto, nero di morte. È il primo indizio che apre un'improvvisata caccia all'enigmatico assassino, un'indagine sbalestrata e costellata di microcosmici indizi, messaggi che portano alla luce altre impiccagioni rituali, biascichii notturni e cabalistici oggetti disseminati, forse criminosamente o forse solo per caso, tra le stanze della dimessa pensione in cui i due decidono di sostare. Qui, nella complicità di una famiglia di misteriosi albergatori, altri ritrovamenti e anomalie amplificano l'eccitazione: il cadavere di un gatto che oscilla nella caligine montana, un uomo con le scarpe gialle appeso nel cuore della boscaglia, una donna silenziosa dalla bocca sfigurata, i colpi selvaggi di un martello nella notte, e gracidii di rospi alle porte, appetiti orgiastici, cigolii di talami incestuosi. Tutti nella casa sembrano nascondere un segreto, sfilandosi però dall'interrogatorio dei giovani ospiti con lepidezze e contraccuse, mentre le piste si moltiplicano, si contraddicono, si confondono nel disincanto di ogni verosimile soluzione. Cosmo – che il Saggiatore propone in una nuova traduzione – è l'ultima perturbante storia raccontata da Witold Gombrowicz; la più violenta, ironica, oscura favola mai scritta dal visionario autore polacco, uno dei grandi maestri del Novecento. Un romanzo che coglie nell'atmosfera poliziesca gli smerigli filosofici di un'indagine sulla tragedia umana, i disperati tentativi di scovare un senso nei dettagli marginali dell'esistenza, gli impulsi sessuali esasperati fino all'aberrazione che manipolano la nostra percezione del mondo, e l'ambiguità del reale cui la noia del vivere rivendica inesauribili interpretazioni, formulando di continuo cosmi paralleli, fantasmi, invisibili assassini le cui tracce si fanno evidenti solo per chi li ha immaginati. In questa foresta di segni, il Cosmo – il grande ordine che dà forma al Caos – è solo un altro nome con cui appellare la morte. È la sua apparizione sfingica, il suo subdolo serpeggiare nella vita tra simboli che si imboscano ovunque, ma che raramente riusciamo a decifrare.

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Page Count

208

Publisher

Il Saggiatore

Published Date

ISBN 10

8865765704

ISBN 13

9788865765708

Kronos

By: Witold Gombrowicz

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Kronos

By: Witold Gombrowicz

Tous les lecteurs de Witold Gombrowicz connaissent son Journal, paru dans la revue de l’émigration polonaise Kultura. Mais personne à ce jour ne soupçonnait l’existence d’un autre journal, sulfureux, celui dont l’auteur disait à sa femme Rita : « Si la maison brûle, tu prends le Kronos et les contrats, et tu cours le plus vite possible. » Le manuscrit en était resté totalement secret, après la mort de Gombrowicz en 1969 à Vence. De ce paquet de feuilles écrites à la main, avec des abréviations qui font penser à un texte kabbalistique, l’auteur surgit, mis à nu. Dans sa préface, Yann Moix écrit justement : « D’où vient que ces pages inédites sont si extraordinaires ? De ce qu’elles sont ordinaires, justement. Ces pages sont des journées. Des journées comme les vôtres, comme les miennes. Pour la première fois, on peut assister, en temps réel, aux effets du quotidien sur le génie gombrowiczien. » Les ennuis de santé et d’argent. Les lieux. La gloire tardive qui l’atteint. La sexualité sans fard. C’est la coulisse de l’OEuvre, le laboratoire ouvert à notre regard.

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Page Count

270

Publisher

Stock

Published Date

ISBN 10

2234079470

ISBN 13

9782234079472

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