Gordana P. Crnković’s Literature and Film from East Europe's Forgotten “Second World”: Essays of Invitation is a delightful journey through more than twenty canonical works of literature and film in the second half of the twentieth century. While this wide-ranging collection of essays excels as a textbook for university courses, it is also an enjoyable read for non-academic audiences.
Crnković begins by carving a space for East Europe. She explains in her introduction, “On Invitations and Discoveries,” that her childhood in Yugoslavia had not fostered for her a connection to East Europe, yet such a connection ultimately became essential to her work. For more than two decades, she has taught comparative East European literature and film at University of Washington, Seattle. Her writing is imbued with the diverse perspectives of her students and her joy in teaching them. One has the sense that she is convincing the reader to pay...
