An Ecology of World Literature

What is a literature? How do literatures of different countries interact with each other? In this groundbreaking study Alexander Beecroft develops a new way of thinking about world literature. Drawing on a series of examples and case studies the book ranges from ancient epic to the contemporary fiction of Roberto Bolaño and Amitav Ghosh. Beecroft identifies a series of literary ecologies from small-scale societies to the planet as a whole within which literary texts are produced and circulated. An Ecology of World Literature places in dialogue scholarship on ancient and modern western and non-western texts producing new and unexpected demands for literary study.