The Literature of Post-Communist Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania

Based on extensive interviews with authors, editors, and publishers in four countries, this book examines the economic, social, and literary effect of the end of communist domination and accompanying cultural subsidies in Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. The end of the communist regime has made the position of writer less lucrative as well as less prestigious within these four countries. Likewise, the countries’ respective publishing markets are struggling to adjust to a new economy in which books are more expensive, Western competition is ever-increasing, and distribution systems must be rebuilt. The author addresses each of these concerns as they affect the individual nations and Central Europe as a whole and includes extensive bibliographical citations for primary and secondary works referenced in each chapter.

Writer and educational consultant Robert Murray Davis is professor emeritus of the University of Oklahoma. He lives in Sun Lakes, Arizona.

Robert Murray Davis
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 208
Bibliographic Info: appendix, index
Copyright Date: 2008
pISBN: 978-0-7864-3207-3
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      vii
Preface      1
Introduction      3

1. Very Different: Central European and American Poets      9
2. Out of the Shadows: Slovene Writing After Independence      22
3. Desperate but Not Serious: Hungarian Writing After 1989      66
4. Slovak Writing in Transition      111
5. Romanian Writing Redivivus      144
6. Transition—And After? And Beyond? Geopolitics, Marketing and Literary Anxieties in the New Central Europe      165
Epilogue      180

Appendix: Memorial Poem by Éva Toth      189
Index      193

• “recommended”—Choice
• “informative and valuable”—World Literature Today