Noah's ark for Literary Gourmets

The present volume includes comparative literature studiesand essays that I have published in various journals overthe past twenty years. The authors I deal with are verydifferent: from Sei Shonagon to Franz Werfel, from WillSelf to Ludmila Ulitskaya, from J. R. R. Tolkien to RobertoBolaño, from Marie Darrieusecq to Andrei Codrescu, fromC. S. Lewis to Patrick Modiano, from Alasdair Gray to DavidMitchell. In the Addenda, I also chose to publish a separatecomparative study on the cinema of Andrei Tarkovski andLars von Trier.I wrote captivated by the authors in this book, stimulatedby their worlds and ideas. By their faith in literature andsometimes by their battle for literature. I hope that myinterpretation of each individual author will be stimulatingfor the reader.