World Literatures and the Role of Latin America: Towards a New Understanding of Global Literary Circulation under the Sign of Transareal Studies

Abstract

This article starts from the observation that the era of world literature, the Weltliteratur, which Johann Wolfgang von Goethe announced in his Conversations with Eckermann, has reached its final phase in the fourth phase of accelerated globalization, and is finally opening up in the 21st century, to the era of the Literatures of the World (Literaturen der Welt). In this new, decentralized context, and according to different logics, these Literatures of the World (the term is found in Erich Auerbach's work) include not only globalized and trans-regional literatures, but also literatures without a fixed abode, whose importance has not ceased to grow over the last decades. Situated in this completely new literary landscape, Latin America occupies a unique position at the global level. Taking into account the cultural and political history of the American hemisphere, this article analyzes the specific conditions and opportunities of Latin American literatures in the polylogical context of World Literatures.