All together and on one’s own. Central European Literature(s) on the French Market

Abstract

The main topic of the paper is the current situation of Central European literature in France – presented at the example of Visegrad countries – and its potential improvement by means of cooperation. Such an improvement seems to be essential to counteract the imbalance in the intercultural dialogue, as French, located in the group of central languages (according to the division proposed by Johan Heilbron, 1999), largely dominates in literary exchange with the Central European languages. The question arises, whether the countries of Central Europe can undertake joint actions to improve this situation and strengthen their position. Although they all have various mechanisms of public aid for translating and promoting national culture abroad, they currently do not coordinate their actions in this field. While the example of Nordic countries and the successful exportation of literary goods that they have been carrying out in the last two decades clearly shows that such regional, transnational cooperation can be very fruitful. However, to apply this pattern to Central Europe, one has to first somehow combine the characteristics of individual countries into a single narrative that could be presented to the French reader-consumer as a brand. Some bottom-up initiatives already present in both the Visegrad countries and France proves that the idea of Central European literary brand is ambitious, yet feasible.