Essays on the Fiction of Kazimierz Brandys, Danilo Kiš, György Konrád and Christa Wolf

All four writers living in socialist societies are engaged in searching for ways to preserve and express their personal and national identities and, at the same time, retain European values. As opposed to their western colleagues, these writers concede that in their countries literature has to take on all kinds of extraliterary roles. In other societies these may belong to the fields of sociology or psychology: in the socialist world it is prose literature that has to do the job. They all feel the responsibility of the <i>literati</i> and, therefore, write corrective ficiton. Their books are books with a message--a political message--one which is expected of them internally and abroad. The works under discussion are all <i>Bildungsromane</i>, but in them the characters learn, or rather relearn life's meaning as adults.

CONTENTS

Introduction
M. D. Birnbaum and R. Trager-Verchovsky

A Polemics with History: Kazimierz Brandys' Rondo
Aleksandar Flaker

History and Human Relationships in the Fiction of Danilo Kiš
Marianna D. Birnbaum

Danilo Kiš' Encyclopedia of the Dead
Predrag Matvejević

The Tropics of Love and Loyalty in György Konrád's The Loser
Marianna D. Birnbaum

On Christa Wolf's Cassandra
Rudolf G. Wagner

Publisher: Michigan Slavic Publications

Year of Publication: 1988

Location: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

# of Pages: 133

Price: $15.00

ISBN: 0-936534-06-0

Format: Paperback

Series Name / Number: Michigan Studies in Humanities [MSH] / 7