Mr. Kundera, The European
astern Europeans have so of-
ten bemoaned the lack of rec-
ognition of their cultures that
when one of their artists does
achieve world standing, they
are quick to proclaim him a genius who speaks for the entire region. A Yugoslav writer, Dubravka Ugregik, re- cently recalled attending a lecture in Bel- grade by a "world-famous" American au- thor who, when asked if he had ever heard of Ivo Andrik, Miroslav Krleza, or Danilo KiE (all three of them widely translated, and Andrik i...