Diaspora is certainly the intellectual and social property of many cultures, but for Irish and Polish writers it has taken on a potent symbolism. Olszewska (world literature, National U. of
Ireland) begins her interdisciplinary analysis of the exile experience by defining and describing representations of exile, noting that the Polish disapora is mostly political while that of
Ireland is largely economic and cultural, then pairs Irish and Polish writers to analyze facets of the exile experience. She compares the work of Kazimierz Brandys on exile as punishment and
liberation with that of Brian Moore, Marek Hlasko's fiction on estrangement at the moral, cultural and communal levels with that of Desmond Hogan, and Stansilaw Baranczak's poetry of
intellectual dissidence with that of Paul Muldoon. The result is a model of comparative literature studies. Distributed in North American by The David Brown Book Co. Annotation 穢2007 Book News,
Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
