The Man Who Disappeared: Franz Kafka between Prague and New York -- Behind the Gold Curtain: F. O. Matthiessen on the Czechoslovak Road to Socialism -- The Cowards' Guide to World Literature: Josef Škvorecký's American Epigraphs -- The Kingdom of May: Allen Ginsberg through Springtime Prague -- The Tourist: Philip Roth and the Writers from the Other Europe -- Across the Gray Zone: American Writers and the Czech Jazz Section.
Summary:
"In The Nonconformists, Brian K. Goodman reveals a history of hidden connections between dissenting literary cultures on both sides of the Iron Curtain. While American readers were devouring Kafka, Czech writers and translators were eagerly following cultural trends in the United States, importing and creatively appropriating works by Langston Hughes and Ernest Hemingway. Bridging these two worlds, Goodman reconstructs the journeys of American writers such as Allen Ginsberg, Arthur Miller, Philip Roth, and John Updike to Prague, where they established lasting friendships with their Czech counterparts, including Josef Škvorecký, Václav Havel, Ivan Klíma, Ludvík Vaculík, and Milan Kundera. Even though all these writers were banned after a Soviet-led invasion ended the Prague Spring in 1968, the English-language reception of underground Czech literature would help transform the city of Kafka into an international capital of dissent"--Provided by publisher.
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