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"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 The Cold War was an era of surprising connections between American and Czech literary cultures. Major writers met behind the Iron Curtain, while others smuggled, translated, and adapted works from the other side. Brian K. Goodman explores the artistic and political consequences, arguing that the movement of literature inspired new forms of dissent
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