A history of fiction in twentieth-century Central and Eastern Europe

The chapter on literary cultures responds to the rejection of the grand récit in recent literary histories, offering a partly chronological narrative of literary cultures from early modernism to post-modernism while abandoning teleological visions of literary development. The primary aim here is to highlight the multilingualism and hybridity of Central and Eastern European authors and track the transnational circulation of their texts in the twentieth century. The focus is on some of the most canonical works and the often-unusual temporality of their international reception and popular success.