European Writers in Exile collects a series of original essays that address the writers' universal existential dilemma, when viewed through the lens of exile: who am I, where am I from, and what do I write, and to whom? While we often understand the term "exile" to refer to writers who have either been forced to leave their home country or region or chosen self-exile, this term need not be defined so narrowly, and the contributors to this volume explore a range of interesting and evolving definitions. Various countries in Europe have long been both a refuge for people and writers from many countries and a strife-torn region which has forced many to flee within the continent or beyond it. The phrase "in exile" involves writers moving across borders in multiple directions and for multiple reasons, including for reasons of duress or personal quest, and these themes are addressed and critiqued in these essays. This volume naturally examines the cataclysmic and near-universal exilic experiences relating to the world wars, including essays on Thomas Mann, Vladimir Nabokov, Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss. Additionally, essays address the unique early twentieth-century experiences of Emile Zola, Franz Kafka, Joseph Conrad, and James Joyce. More contemporary essay subjects include Milan Kundera, Norman Manea, Eva Hoffman, Caryl Phillips, and W. G. Sebald. This collection of transnational, globalized European literature studies envisions understanding the intersection of our contemporary world and various writers in exile in new cultural, historical, spatial, and epistemological frameworks. How does literary production in an increasingly globalized world-when seen from exile-affect a view back towards a country or region left behind? Or, conversely, how does exile push a writer to look outward to new (trans-)nationalized space(s)? These and other questions are important to investigate. Taken in sum, European Writers in Exile offers an academically rigorous, important, and cohesive volume.
Preface: On the Experience of Exile Robert C. Hauhart and Jeff Birkenstein 1. Social Exile in Nineteenth Century England Charlotte Fiehn 2. Zola's English Exile: the Private Pages of a Public Author Katherine Ashley 3. "All Europe contributed": Joseph Conrad's Experience and Representation of Exile Kelly C. MacPhail 4. Thomas Mann - An American? From Fascination to Disillusionment - The Black Swan as a Literary Account of Mann's Exile Experiences Katarzyna Balzewska 5. James Joyce, Dubliners, and Exile Jeff Birkenstein 6. Franz Kafka's Exile of the Mind Robert C. Hauhart 7. Professor Pnin in Exile: Nabokov and the Liminal Experience of the Post-War Emigre Academic Rowena Clarke 8. Specks in the City: Shklovsky and Nabokov in Berlin Rossitsa Terzieva-Artemis 9. Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss: The Tradition of Political Thought and the Modern Age Shmuel Lederman 10. Arthur Koestler's Fictional Self-Reflections of Exile Andrea Gay Tyndall 11. In Search of the Doppelganger: Homecoming from Exile Irina Golovacheva 12. Milan Kundera, the Novel, and the Problem of History Liani Lochner 13. Norman Manea's Exile between Predicament and Redemption Brindusa Nicolaescu 14. Lessons from Exile-Eva Hoffman as Theoretician and Practitioner of Otherness Johannes Evelein 15. "Receive me kindly, stranger that I am": W.G. Sebald's Existential Exile Marion Rohrleitner 16. Transnational Modes of Exile in Caryl Phillips's Narratives: Or, What it Feels Like to be Both Of and Not Of Svetlana Stefanova
