New Books In Eastern European Studies

Written Here, Published There: How Underground Literature Crossed the Iron Curtain (Central European University Press, 2014) is a richly detailed description of the social practices, debates and discourses that were part of a transnational literary community created by tamizdat – literary works written in communist Europe but published in the West. Friederike Kind-Kovacs, Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Southeastern and Eastern Europe, University of Regensburg, demonstrates the permeability of the “Iron Curtain” through a study of the practicalities of book smuggling and publishing houses. More importantly, she reveals the motivations of non-conformist writers who sought publication in the West and the Western intellectuals, emigres and activists who facilitated publication – along with the tensions inherent in these relationships. Kind-Kovacs focuses as well as on how literary transmission between communist Europe and the West was shaped by and contributed to the human rights movement.