CHOROMANSKI, MICHAL

born June 22, 1904, Yelizavetgrad, Ukraine, Russian Empire [now Kirovograd, Ukraine] died May 24, 1972, Warsaw, Pol. Polish novelist and playwright. Although born of Polish parents, Choromanski was educated in the Soviet Union, and when he returned to Poland in 1924, he began his literary activity as a translator of the work of Polish poets into Russian. From 1938 to 1958 he lived primarily in Argentina and Canada. His first success as a Polish novelist was Zazdrosc i medycyna (1932; Jealousy and Medicine), which used experimental methods of narrative sequence and was remarkable for its clinical analysis of the jealousy and eroticism experienced by the participants in a love triangle. Another Choromanski psychological study was his collection of essays and short stories entitled Kobieta i mezczyzna (1959; "Female and Male"). Choromanski's tales show his strong interest in describing such psychopathological states as nymphomania and narcotic euphoria, which he treats in a macabre and ironic fashion. Later works include Schodami w gre, schodami w dl (1967; "Upstairs, Downstairs"), W rzecz wstapic (1968; "To Get to the Heart of the Matter"), and Slowacki wysp tropikalnych (1969; "Slowacki of the Tropical Islands").