Description: By conducting "imagined dialogues" between selected literary works -- Eastern European on one hand, American and English on the other -- this book proposes an effective new way of reading literature, one that goes beyond the narrowing categories of contemporary critical trends. Under Gordana Crnkovic's guidance, writings by Danilo Kis and John Cage engage in a dialogue on language, history, and the possibility of freedom. Stories by Polish writer Tadeusz come together with Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day in an exchange about the workings of power. And Marina, Croatian writer Irena Vrkljan's experiment in autobiography, connects with Susan Howe's My Emily Dickinson to explore relations between poetry, community, and gender. What emerges from these meetings, along with a new perspective on the works under scrutiny, is a heightened sense of the liberating power of literature in general.

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