Central European Narratives

This open access book dives into the current shapes and forms of what is variously called non-fiction narrative, creative non-fiction, creative documentary narrative, literary journalism, or reportage in East-Central Europe. This volume defines the region as the area that lies between Germany and Russia, south of Scandinavia and north of Greece and Turkey, countries that all share the common heritage of once belonging to the Communist world during the second half of the 20th century: Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine. The chapters focus on the 20th and 21st century and contemporary developments, motifs, and trends, as well as providing a broader historical context for specific works, authors, and national genre genealogies. With the majority of authors originating from the region, this collection contributes to the de-westernization of the global academic discourse in relevant disciplines and addresses global inequities in contemporary knowledge production.

This volume makes a significant contribution to current global research in creative non-fiction and literary journalism and would appeal to scholars of Slavic and Eastern European Studies, media, and cultural studies. No such book currently exists in English. In this sense, what the contributors and volume editors are trying to accomplish with this work is nothing less than canonizing a very important dimension of the genre: the East-Central European tradition.

György Túry is affiliated with Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary. He is a two-time Fulbright grantee (Columbia University, Ohio State University) and has taught, researched, and published in Hungarian, English, and Chinese, in the fields of literary, cultural, and media studies.

Robert Alexander is Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Brock University. A former print journalist and editor, he teaches courses in Creative Non-fiction, Literary Journalism, Journalism, Rhetoric, and the History of Linguistic Thought. He is a co-editor of the Palgrave volume Literary Journalism and Social Justice.