Home and the World in Slovak Writing: A Small Nation’s Literature in Context - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0228024056 ISBN 13: 9780228024057

Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2025

Synopsis

Literatures of small nations represent a minuscule portion of the global literary marketplace, where books written in English outnumber translated works. The struggle for visibility in relation to dominant languages and cultures is not new in Slovakia, a nation of five million whose literary history has been shaped by the influence of more widely spoken languages including Hungarian, Czech, and Russian.

Home and the World in Slovak Writing brings Slovak literature out of this isolation to tell the story of how a nation’s literature can survive and thrive despite a small domestic audience and relatively limited circulation in English translation. The book demonstrates how historic events such as the post-Stalin Thaw, the Prague Spring, and the Velvet Revolution moulded the Slovak canon and situates contemporary Slovak literature in broader regional and global contexts. Through case studies of the transformations and adaptations of Slovak literature, contributors examine the changing social roles of writers, the tensions between tradition and innovation, and the dynamic interactions between influences from the outside world and domestic sources of inspiration.

Home and the World in Slovak Writing maps the relationship between geopolitical destiny and literary production at a critical moment. As relations between the East and the West are destabilized by war, the question of cultural identity has again become a matter of national survival in Central Europe.

About this title

About the Authors

Katarina Gephardt is professor of English at Kennesaw State University.

Charles Sabatos is professor of English and comparative literature at Yeditepe University.

Ivana Taranenková is senior research fellow and director of the Institute of Slovak Literature of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0228024056
• ISBN 13: 9780228024057
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 396
• Editor: Gephardt Katarina, Sabatos Charles, Taranenková Ivana