ABSTRACT This essay’s theoretical goal is to examine the possibilities of conceptualizing literary cultures of Eastern Europe as a world-literary region in its own right. This region, formerly part of the so-called “Second World,” has virtually disappeared from the comparative literary scene after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. At the same time, the end of the Cold War coincided with the renewal of the debates about “world literature,” where the old opposition between “West” and “East” has been redrawn along the lines of “North” and “South.” This article focuses on a particular case in-between – Eastern Europe – as it takes on the double issue of “internal Orientalism” within Europe and the homogenizing effects of the privileged status of the novel in world-literary theory today. I draw on contemporary Ukrainian fiction to critique what I term a homogeneric vision of the contemporary world-literary field.