Overview

This text explores the themes of memory and exile in selected novels of Vladimir Nabokov and Milan Kundera. Both writers, the author argues, stress how personal and cultural memory serves as a creative means of overcoming the artist's and exile's loss of homeland. In their virtuoso display of literary talent, Nabokov and Kundera showcase the strategies that allow their protagonists to succeed as emigres: a creative fusing of past and present through the prism of the imagination. The text closely analyzes two novels by each author: the first written in exile (Nabokov's ""Mary"" and Kundera's ""The Book of Laughing and Forgetting"") and a later, pivotal novel in each writer's career (Nabokov's ""The Gift"" and Kundera's ""The Unbearable Lightness of Being""). In all four texts, these authors explore how the kaleidoscope of personal and cultural memory confronts a fragmented and untenable present, contrasting the lives of fictional emigres who fail to bridge the gap between past and present with those emigres whose rich artistic vision allows them to transcend the trials of homelessness.

Full Product Details

9780809323968

Table of Contents

Reviews

This is the first comparative study of the two great figures of international late modernism, Vladimir Nabokov and Milan Kundera. By examining the problems of literal and figurative displacements that are symptomatic of the waning years of the previous century, Pi chova provides a broader context for understanding these two writers whose work soars beyond the narrow frameworks of Russian and Czech literature. It is an important and timely work, which will shed light on the very important questions concerning the cultural identity of the East Central European periphery. -- Tomislav Longinovic, author of Borderland Culture: The Politics of Identity in Four Twentieth-Century Slavic Novels This is the first comparative study of the two great figures of international late modernism, Vladimir Nabokov and Milan Kundera. By examining the problems of literal and figurative displacements that are symptomatic of the waning years of the previous century, Pichova provides a broader context for understanding these two writers whose work soars beyond the narrow frameworks of Russian and Czech literature. It is an important and timely work, which will shed light on the very important questions concerning the cultural identity of the East Central European periphery. --Tomislav Longinovic, author of Borderland Culture: The Politics of Identity in Four Twentieth-Century Slavic Novels This is the first comparative study of the two great figures of international late modernism, Vladimir Nabokov and Milan Kundera. By examining the problems of literal and figurative displacements that are symptomatic of the waning years of the previous century, Pichova provides a broader context for understanding these two writers whose work soars beyond the narrow frameworks of Russian and Czech literature. It is an important and timely work, which will shed light on the very important questions concerning the cultural identity of the East Central European periphery. Tomislav Longinovic, author of Borderland Culture: The Politics of Identity in Four Twentieth-Century Slavic Novels This is the first comparative study of the two great figures of international late modernism, Vladimir Nabokov and Milan Kundera. By examining the problems of literal and figurative displacements that are symptomatic of the waning years of the previous century, Pichova provides a broader context for understanding these two writers whose work soars beyond the narrow frameworks of Russian and Czech literature. It is an important and timely work, which will shed light on the very important questions concerning the cultural identity of the East Central European periphery. --Tomislav Longinovic, author of Borderland Culture: The Politics of Identity in Four Twentieth-Century Slavic Novels

This is the first comparative study of the two great figures of international late modernism, Vladimir Nabokov and Milan Kundera. By examining the problems of literal and figurative displacements that are symptomatic of the waning years of the previous century, Pichova provides a broader context for understanding these two writers whose work soars beyond the narrow frameworks of Russian and Czech literature. It is an important and timely work, which will shed light on the very important questions concerning the cultural identity of the East Central European periphery. --Tomislav Longinovic, author of Borderland Culture: The Politics of Identity in Four Twentieth-Century Slavic Novels

Author Information

Hana Pí chová is an associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures, University of Texas at Austin.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available