Imagined Dialogues: Eastern European Literature in Conversation with American and English Literature

By conducting
imagined dialogues
between selected literary works - Eastern European on one hand, American and English on the other - this book proposes an effective way of reading literature, one that goes beyond the narrowing categories of contemporary critical trends. Under Gordana Crnkovic’s guidance, writings by Danilo Kis and John Cage engage in dialogue on language, history and the possibility of freedom. Stories by Polish writer Tadeusz come together with Kazuo Ishiguro’s
Remains of the Day
in an exchange about the workings of power, and
Marina , Croatian writer Irena Vrkljan’s experiment in autobiography, connects with Susan Howe’s
My Emily Dickinson
to explore relations between poetry, community and gender. What emerges from these meetings, along with a perspective on the works under scrutiny, is a heightened sense of the liberating power of literature in general.