Opportunity and Estrangement in Born-Translated Literature: An Analysis of Yiyun Li's Language and Self-Translation.

Abstract

My thesis traces World Literature from Goethe's coining of the phrase to contemporary discussions of World Literature. Whereas Goethe's idea of Weltliteratur is situated in the distinction between different national literatures, the dramatic acceleration of globalization has complicated and changed our contemporary notion of World Literature. Drawing primarily from Bharati Mukherjee's interrogation of contemporary immigrant and bilingual writing, and Rebecca Walkowitz's examination of the contemporary novel as World Literature, my work on Li is situated at the intersection between Mukherjee and Walkowitz.