When we talk about ‘world writing’, what exactly does that mean?
It’s becoming quite an established term now in literary studies, particularly in comparative literary studies – working between different language literatures. It’s seeing some interesting push-pull contestation with what is still called postcolonial literary studies and there are different critical interest groups that are motivating both. And then there’s probably a third stream that is, as it were, arbitrating between the two, because there is critical profit to be gained from both – in other words they aren’t doing the same critical work. And so there is ground for collaboration and I think some of these critical interest groups don’t quite see how much ground there is.
