Table of Contents

Preface Acknowledgments 1. World War II in the Literatures of Eastern Europe 2. Postwar Colonialism, by Communist Style 3. In the Aftermath of the Great Dictator's Death 4. Fleeing the System: Literature and Emigration 5. Internal Exile and the Literature of Escape 6. Writers Behind Bars: Eastern European Prison Literature, by 1945-1990 7. The Reform Imperative in Eastern Europe: From Solidarity to Postmodernism 8. Eastern European Women Poets of the 1980s and 1990s 9. The House of Cards Collapses: The Literary Fallout of the Yugoslav Crises of the 1990s 10. Glimpses of the Other World: America Through Eastern European Eyes 11. The Postcolonial Literary Scene in Eastern Europe Since 1991 Notes Further Reading Index

Promotional Information

"The story of Eastern Europe since the end of the Second World War is a phoenix rising from the ashes, in a thousand forms with a dozen tongues, being enslaved by liberators and then disillusioned with liberation. This remarkable volume, with its great diversity of literatures and languages (thirteen of them), can be seen as a companion to Harold B. Segel's Columbia Guide to the Literatures of Eastern Europe since 1945. Part history, part biography, part primary text, its stories spread out in all directions with no definable main heroes but with a number of common themes: dictators, fleeing outward, fleeing inward; totalitarianism becoming postmodernism without a breathing space. In its panoptic scope and fine-grained detail, it reminds one of War and Peace, but peopled entirely by witnesses who believed in the power of the word." -- Caryl Emerson, Princeton University "Without a doubt Harold B. Segel's Columbia Literary History of Eastern Europe Since 1945 is a substantial contribution to the field of Eastern European literature. I know of no other reference that approaches the nature or of the scope of this book." -- Charles S. Kraszewski, editor in chief, Polish Review, and author of Great Souls and Grey Men: The Romantic Hero and Contemporary Anti-Hero in Polish and Czech Literature

About the Author

Harold B. Segel is professor emeritus of Slavic literatures and of comparative literature at Columbia University. He is the author of fourteen books, including The Columbia Guide to the Literatures of Eastern Europe Since 1945; Body Ascendant: Modernism and the Physical Imperative; Pinocchio's Progeny: Puppets, Marionettes, Robots, and Automatons in Modernist and Avant-Garde Drama; and Turn-of-the-Century Cabaret: Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Cracow, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Zurich.

Reviews

An excellent resource for Slavic literature scholars and librarians alike. -- Terri Tickle Miller American Reference Books Annual