For nearly half a century, the Iron Curtain obscured from\nWestern eyes a vital group of national and regional writers. Seen\nas a whole, the literatures of Eastern Europe during the second\nhalf of the twentieth century are extraordinarily rich, and in\nrecent years many Eastern European novelists, poets, and\nplaywrights have attracted wider attention and broader publication\nin the West. And yet no reference work, embracing all the countries\nof this region, including the former East Germany, has brought\nsynoptic analysis to bear on these literatures—until now.
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Featuring lucid analyses of the works of Ivo Andric´, Milan\nKundera, Wislawa Szymborksa, Ismail Kadare, Czeslaw Milosz, Christa\nWolf, Imre Kertész, and Nina Cassian, among nearly 700 others, The\nColumbia Guide to the Literatures of Eastern Europe Since 1945 is\nan indispensable reference to the literatures of the former Soviet\nbloc: Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the former\nrepublics of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and East Germany. Marked\nby geographical proximity and the shared experience of communism\nand its collapse, these countries are home to writers whose works\nhave illuminated many of the critical ideas and key events of the\nlatter half of the twentieth century.
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Compiled by a leading scholar who has a working knowledge of all\nthe languages of the region, the Guide includes an analytical\noverview of literary themes and trends in historical context,\nranging from World War II to the disintegration of Yugoslavia; an\nA–Z section of almost 700 entries on those writers whose literary\ndebuts or major literary activity came after the war, with lists of\nworks about the authors and of works by the authors available in\nEnglish translation; a general bibliography; and an author\nindex.
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The author entries—the heart of the book—provide the most\nsalient information about the writers and concise interpretations\nof their works. The two-part general bibliography lists references\nto books and articles only in English. The first part contains\nworks of a general nature on Eastern Europe, primarily but not\nexclusively after 1945. The second cites works, listed by country,\nthat fall into four categories: histories, literary histories,\nanthologies, and monographs on genres and movements.
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