How to Bring the Literature of a Small Nation to the World
On Tuesday, March 4, 2025, a unique English-language academic publication, Home and the World in Slovak Writing. A Small Nation’s Literature in Context, was released. The book was created under the leadership of editors Katarína Gephardt, Ivana Taranenková, and Charles Sabatos, in collaboration with both domestic and international scholars specializing in Slovak and Slavic studies. Researchers from the Institute of Slovak Literature of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAS) played a significant role in the book’s creation.
"This collective monograph presents a comprehensive view of Slovak literature to an English-speaking audience, placing it in global contexts and engaging in dialogue with the international scholarly community. Since the publication of History of Slovak Literature by Peter Petro in 1997, this is the first work of its kind, making it an important contribution to the representation of our culture," said Ivana Taranenková, co-editor of the book.
The literatures of small nations have a weak presence in the global literary market. However, this publication demonstrates how such literature can survive and thrive despite having a small domestic readership and limited representation in the global Anglophone market.
The book was published after several years of research by a dedicated academic team and is released by the renowned Canadian publishing house McGill-Queen’s University Press. It explores how historical events—such as the denunciation of Stalin’s personality cult, the Prague Spring, and the Velvet Revolution—have shaped the Slovak literary canon. At the same time, it offers a fresh perspective on Slovak literature after 1989, contributing to the study of Slovak literary history while making the topic accessible to a global academic audience.
Table of Contents:
Foreword: Slovak Literature and Central Europe
Daniel W. Pratt
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Katarina Gephardt, Charles Sabatos, and Ivana Taranenková
1 Slovak Literature and the Post-Stalin Liberalization, 1956–70
Rajendra A. Chitnis
2 Literature of the Transition: Between Neo-modernism and Postmodernism
Peter Darovec
3 Writing the Self from Autobiography to Autofiction
Ivana Taranenková
4 History and Memory: Rewriting the Past
Zora Prušková
5 Poetry and Social Engagement
Viliam Nádaskay
6 Subversion and Experimentation in Contemporary Poetry
Ivana Hostová
7 Regional Writing and National Identity in the Borderlands
Radoslav Passia
8 Expatriate and Cosmopolitan Writing
Tamara Janecová
9 Women’s Writing and Social Change
Rafał Majerek
coda | translators and translations
Translating Politics and the Politics of Translation
Magdalena Mullek
An Interview with Translator Julia Sherwood
Prepared by Katarina Gephardt
Appendix | Selected Bibliography of Slovak Literature
in English Translation
Compiled by Charles Sabatos and Ivana Hostová
Contributors
Index
Prepared by: Jana Vicenová, Institute of Slovak Literature SAS.