Mapping Minor/Small and World Literatures: Periphery and Center

Mapping Minor/Small and World Literatures: Periphery and Center makes a declarative intervention in debates about world literature, redefining the boundaries between the center and periphery to rejuvenate long-established assumptions about significance and insignificance. In this book, African American literature (emerging from the often overlooked pink periphery, a cramped space of minor literature), works from the Faroe Islands, Basque literature, First Nation Canadian literature, Western narratives about peripheral China, Kurdish literature, the ultraminor literary space of Antigua, the 'favela' of Brazilian literature, as well as the hyperlocal narratives of Australian and New Zealand literature are all studied for their meaningful role within the world literary system. Additionally, working-class writing and the literary contributions of individuals on the margins of their own societies are given a voice, ensuring that the world literary space does not merely represent the perspectives of dominant elites. Unlike other descriptions of world literature, which have frequently allowed the grandeur and breadth of the global to overshadow the imperative for authentic literary biodiversity, this anthology, featuring contributions from diverse scholars representing various countries and backgrounds, actively deconstructs the structures of power and domination inherent in Western-European-centered world literature, minor literature, and small literature.

Nicholas Birns is Associate Professor at New York University, USA, where he concentrates in general humanities, fiction in English from 1700 as well as literary theory. His books include Understanding Anthony Powell (2004), the co-edited Companion To Australian Fiction since 1900 (2007). The latter was named a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2008. He is also the author of Theory After Theory (2010), Willa Cather: Critical Insights (2011), Barbarian Memory: The Legacy of Early Medieval History in Early Modern Literature (2013), Contemporary Australian Literature: A World Not Yet Dead (2015) and Vargas Llosa and Latin American Politics (2010, co-ed. Juan E. de Castro). He has published essays and reviews in The New York Times Book Review, the Australian Literary Review, the Australian Book Review, Arizona Quarterly, and Exemplaria; Studies in Romanticism, Symbiosis, College Literature, and European Romantic Review.

Yanli He teaches at Sichuan University, is affiliated with Brandeis University, and also serves as a Non-Resident Fellow of Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University.