This issue of Mosaic explores Jean-Paul Sartre’s claim that the Eastern European writer has “something to write about,” in that he is compelled to work on a scale of public responsibility unavailable to his essentially more private Western counterpart. This issue presents three articles on the famous Hungarian poet Sándor Petőfi and essays examining Czech avant-garde poetry, Joseph Conrad’s father, Cyrian Norwid, Jerzy Kosinski, Miroslav Krleža, the poetry of Soviet Latvia, and Charles Nodier.