European Literary Critics on the Future of Reviewing

The complete article is only available in German, but last week literary critics from several European countries met in Munich to discuss the future of their profession.

This English excerpt (from Courrier International) sounds vaguely similar to what’s going on here in the States:

As Roman Bucheli reports, the outlook varies greatly from country to country. “There were some embarrassed faces among the West European critics when Jan Icha from the Czech Republic, Jurko Prochasco from Ukraine and Istvan Margocsy from Hungary described with unbeatable sarcasm the work conditions in their home countries. They explained that a brief heyday did prevail after the fall of the Communist empire. The underground Samisdat publications and the return of exiles fostered a sharp critical intelligence. Yet the economic upheavals of the past few years have done away with their journals and magazines. Today, they concluded, literary criticism, where it still exists, has become entirely meaningless.”