Volume 12, Tome V: Kierkegaard's Influence on Literature, Criticism and Art

Tome V treats the work of a heterogeneous group of writers from the Romance languages and from Central and Eastern Europe. Kierkegaard has been particularly important for Spanish literature: the Argentine writers Jorge Luis Borges, Leonardo Castellani, and Ernesto Sábato, the Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, and the Spanish essayist and philosopher María Zambrano were all inspired to varying degrees by him. The Dane also appears in the work of Romanian writer Max Blecher, while the Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa was almost certainly inspired by Kierkegaard’s use of pseudonyms. Kierkegaard has also influenced diverse literary figures from Central and Eastern Europe. His influence appears in the novels of the contemporary Hungarian authors Péter Nadas and Péter Esterházy, the work of the Russian writer and literary critic, Mikhail Bakhtin, the Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz and the Czech novelist Ivan Klíma. Tome V also examines how Kierkegaard’s treatment of the story of Abraham and Isaac in Fear and Trembling interested the Polish-born Israeli novelist Pinhas Sadeh.