The Exile and Return of Writers From East-Central Europe : A Compendium

This is the first comparative study of literature written by writers who fled from East-Central Europe during the twentieth century. It includes not only interpretations of individual lives and literary works, but also studies of the most important literary journals, publishers, radio programs, and other aspects of exile literary cultures. The theoretical part of introduction distinguishes between exiles, à ̈migrà ̈s, and expatriates, while the historical part surveys the pre-twentieth-century exile traditions and provides an overview of the exilic events between 1919 and 1995; one section is devoted to exile cultures in Paris, London, and New York, as well as in Moscow, Madrid, Toronto, Buenos Aires and other cities. The studies focus on the factional divisions within each national exile culture and on the relationship between the various exiled national cultures among each other. They also investigate the relation of each exile national culture to the culture of its host country. Individual essays are devoted to Witold Gombrowicz, Paul Goma, Milan Kundera, Monica Lovincescu, Milo Crnjanski, Herta MÃ1⁄4ller, and to the ""internal exile"" of Imre Kertà ̈sz. Special attention is devoted to the new forms of exile that emerged during the ex-Yugoslav wars, and to the problems of ""homecoming"" of exiled texts and writers. Frontmatter 2 Table of Contents 6 Preface 12 Chapter I 16 Introduction 18 Exile: Home of the Twentieth Century 19 Chapter II. Exile Cultures Abroad: Publishing Ventures, Exiles Associations, and Audiences 120 Introduction 122 In the Vacuum of Exile: The Hungarian Activists in Vienna 1919–1926 124 Cosmopolitans without a Polis: Towards a Hermeneutics of the East-East Exilic Experience (1929–1945) 138 Kultura (1946–2000) 159 Polish World War II Veteran Émigré Writers in the US: Danuta Mostwin and Others 204 Irodalmi Újság in Exile: 1957–1989 219 The Hungarian Mikes Kör and Magyar Mühely: Personal Recollections 245 “We did not want an émigré journal": Pavel Tigrid and Svĕdectví 257 Monica Lovinescu at Radio Free Europe 291 Chapter III. Individual Trajectories 320 Introduction 322 Miloš Crnjanski in Exile 324 Gombrowicz, the Émigré 340 Paul Goma: the Permanence of Dissidence and Exile 357 Writing and Internal Exile in Eastern Europe: The Example of Imre Kertész 383 Kundera’s Paradise Lost: Paradigm of the Circle 399 Chapter IV. Autobiographical Exile Writing 410 Introduction 412 Life in Translation: Exile in the Autobiographical Works of Kazimierz Brandys and Andrzej Bobkowski 415 From Diary to Novel: Sándor Márai’s San Gennaro vére and Ítélet Canudosban 431 Exile Diaries: Sándor Márai, Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, and Others 437 “Is There a Place Like Home?” Jewish Narratives of Exile and Homecoming in Late Twentieth-Century East-Central Europe 447 Chapter V. The 1990s: Homecoming, (Re)Canonization, New Exiles 486 Introduction 488 Herta Müller: Between Myths of Belonging 490 Post-Yugoslav Theater Exile: Transitory, Partial and Digital 512 Losing Touch, Keeping in Touch, Out of Touch: The Reintegration of Hungarian Literary Exile after 1989 536 Albert Wass: Rebirth and Apotheosis of a Transylvanian-Hungarian Writer 553 Instead of Conclusion: East Central Literary Exile and its Representation 594 A Timeline of Exile Movements, 1919–2000 612 List of Contributors 620 Index of East-Central European Names 628 9783110217735 This is the first comparative study of literature written by writers who fled from East-Central Europe during the twentieth century. It includes not only interpretations of individual lives and literary works, but also studies of the most important literary journals, publishers, radio programs, and other aspects of exile literary cultures. The theoretical part of introduction distinguishes between exiles, émigrés, and expatriates, while the historical part surveys the pre-twentieth-century exile traditions and provides an overview of the exilic events between 1919 and 1995; one section is devoted to exile cultures in Paris, London, and New York, as well as in Moscow, Madrid, Toronto, Buenos Aires and other cities. The studies focus on the factional divisions within each national exile culture and on the relationship between the various exiled national cultures among each other. They also investigate the relation of each exile national culture to the culture of its host country. Individual essays are devoted to Witold Gombrowicz, Paul Goma, Milan Kundera, Monica Lovincescu, Miloš Crnjanski, Herta Müller, and to the “internal exile” of Imre Kertész. Special attention is devoted to the new forms of exile that emerged during the ex-Yugoslav wars, and to the problems of “homecoming” of exiled texts and writers. This first comparative study of writers who fled from both the Nazi and Communist dictatorships in East-Central Europe includes interpretations of individual trajectories, literary works, and exile literary cultures. A historical and theoretical introduction provides an overview of the events and studies exile cultures from Paris, London, and New York to Moscow, Toronto, and Buenos Aires. Interpretations of select writers are complemented by studies of the main exile journals, publishers, and associations. Special attention is devoted to the problems of “homecoming.”