The former east bloc as a mythological landscape

Jörg Magenau introduces authors Drago Jancar, Ismail Kadaré and Giwi Margwelaschwili, whose new novels present the history of communism in their respective countries Slovenia, Albania and Georgia. Says Magenau: "The time for literature – or rather, legend-making – has come. Communism has turned into a mythological landscape populated by strange figures. It usually takes 200, even 300 years – as with Jesus or the Trojan War – for history to dry up and contract enough to reach the status of legend. With communism, it's moving faster. That's because the people who lived in socialist countries already had a mythological relation to their rulers and the state. Reality was so brittle that it needed extra reinforcements to stay 'real.'"

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