Efebos is a lost novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 written by Karol Szymanowski

Karol Szymanowski

Karol Maciej Szymanowski was a Polish composer and pianist.-Life:Szymanowski was born into a wealthy land-owning Polish gentry family in Tymoszówka, then in the Russian Empire, now in Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine. He studied music privately with his father before going to Gustav Neuhaus'...

, who is best known as a composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

. During the difficult period of time around World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 and the Russian Revolution

Russian Revolution of 1917

The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...

, Szymanowski's childhood home in what is now Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 was destroyed, and he found himself unable to compose. Instead, he explored religious

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

 and homosexual

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

 themes in this novel.

While the entirety of Efebos has been lost, its central argument has been preserved in a 150-page Russian translation made by the author as a gift to Boris Kochno

Boris Kochno

Boris Kochno was a Russian poet, dancer and librettist. He was close with Karol Szymanowski who gave him as a gift a Russian translation of the chapter The Symposium from Efebos, the composer's unpublished novel. Szymanowski also dedicated four poems to him...

 in 1919. It was discovered among Kochno's papers in 1981 and has been published in a German translation as Das Gastmahl: Ein Kapitel aus dem Roman Ephebos, Berlin, Verlag rosa Winkel, 1993.

The book explores ideas which Szymanowski expressed in his music, as well. The clearest affinities are to his opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 King Roger

King Roger

King Roger is an opera by the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski set to a libretto by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz. It was first performed on 19 June 1926 in Warsaw, Poland...

, which shares a setting in Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

 and similarly explores the "Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

nian" and "Dionysian

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

" facets of faith.

Although Szymanowski expressed interest in seeing Efebos published, he wanted to wait until his mother died, presumably to spare her any potential feelings of embarrassment from the contents of the book. As it turned out, he predeceased her, dying in 1937. His friend Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz kept the manuscript, but it was destroyed in a fire in Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

, during the siege of that city

Siege of Warsaw (1939)

The 1939 Battle of Warsaw was fought between the Polish Warsaw Army garrisoned and entrenched in the capital of Poland and the German Army...

in 1939.