SUSAN SONTAG DESCRIBED the Polish novelist and playwright Witold Gombrowicz as “one of the super-arguers of the 20th century”, and his 1937 novel Ferdydurkeas “one of the most bracing, direct books written about sexual desire”.

But the Polish Government wants to drop Gombrowicz (1904-69) from its school syllabus – along with such writers as the Polish-born Joseph Conrad, who apparently exhibited unpatriotic behaviour by emigrating from Krakow, anglicising his name and becoming a master of English – Goethe and Kafka. Other renowned Poles such as the avant-garde painter-writer-playwright Witkacy are also under threat.

The proposals come from Poland’s Minister of Education, Roman Giertych (who represents the League of the Polish Family in the coalition Government). His policy, reminiscent of bans under the Nazis and the Communists, has provoked fury and disbelief in Poland’s writers.

“Roman Giertych should start farming hens,” according to Andrzej Stasiuk, one of the country’s leading writers, whose novel Nine was published by Harvill Secker in Britain last month. “He should never have been trusted with the education of children and youth. Children are to be uniformed and disciplined, they must develop herd instinct and be afraid of strangers. Later, when they grow up a little, they should couple as soon as possible in order to take care of reproduction and not waste time on trifles. There is no room for any meaningful discussion here.”

The Nobel-prizewinning poet Wislawa Szymborska has also protested: “I think Giertych shows an enormous sense of humour in replacing these writers with Jan Dobraczynski” – a conversative whose books include eulogies to the Polish-born Pope John Paul II – “and other unknown writers who will give only one answer, their correct answer, to all the dilemmas rankling the rest.”

The descendants of another Polish Nobel-prizewinner, Henryk Sienkiewicz (1882-1959) whose novels such as Quo Vadis? (the basis for the 1951 Hollywood film) and The Deluge remain on the syllabus, have written to Giertych demanding that they be removed on the grounds that their rightful place is with the cancelled books, not those by Dobraczynski.

Their letter confronts the suspected reasons for the policy: “We are convinced that true patriotic behaviour is built on dialogue, on having the courage to confront different attitudes towards the great challenge of Polishness. Not understanding this fact leads to the wounding of our own national identity. The Poland of The Deluge and of Ferdydurke is a Poland that does not fear itself . . .”

This is a critical time for Poland. With its economy boosted by EU accession and increasing tourism, it needs to show the West the best of its culture, but the right-wing coalition-Government is wary of foreign influence and of the breakdown of family and religion in the face of affluence.

Instead of encouraging students to take pride in Poland’s contribution to literature, and to appreciate how enriching such works are in guiding readers through life, the Government is now facing mockery from the rest of Europe.

Only last week, it issued a warning that Teletubbies may be dangerous for children as one male character has a handbag and another a triangle on his head.

The infrequent “tolerance” marches supporting homosexuality, individuality and the right to self-expression are banned or scarcely tolerated by local governments and met by violent antigay groups and questionable policing. On Giertych’s suggested canon, he claims that the Defence of Socrates is by Aristotle, rather than Plato. The Cracow poet Marcin Swietlicki said: “I guess they changed that because Plato was a faggot.”

The “righteous reading-list” controversy mirrors the absurdity of Ferdydurke itself. In the novel, a 30-year-old man is kidnapped by a professor and forced to go to school to undergo indoctrination in national identity through the literature of the Polish greats, such as Norwid and Slowacki. But the more spirited pupils resist the call to nationalism and mind-numbing conformity.

Instead, Gombrowicz, ripe with linguistic mischief, whizzes through a range of registers from street-speak to aristocratic posturing, peasant slang to the grandiloquence of the intelligentsia, endlessly rebuking authority’s monotonous demand to behave, to be straight, “to be something definite”.

“I wanted to break out in protests and explanations . . .” the protagonist, Joey Kowalski declares. “Any delay threatened to make it permanent.” The same must be said of the response to Giertych’s proposals. James Hopkin’s novel, Winter Under Water is published by Picador. He is guest professor of literature at the University of Leipzig

FERDYDURKE by Witold Gombrowicz translated Eric Mosbacher Marion Boyars, £8.95; 272pp £8.50 (free p&p) 0870 1608080

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