This pathbreaking collection explores a new concept in world literature studies. Going beyond the binary opposition of “major” and “minor” literatures, the ultraminor encompasses the literatures of smaller but vibrant regional and linguistic communities. Using cases as varied as the literatures of Malta, Mauritius, and the Faroe Islands, contemporary Nahuatl novels, Kafka in Prague, and Shakespeare in Naples, the ten essays in this volume take up questions of scale and circulation, the interplay of languages and dialects, and ultraminor writers’ resistance to translation and their...

What is the role of literature in our global landscape today? How do local authors respond to the growing worldwide power of English and the persisting effects of the colonial systems that paved the way for globalization today? These questions have often been approached very differently by postcolonialists and by students of world literature, but over the past two decades, a developing dialogue between these divergent approaches has produced robust scholarship and sometimes fractious debate, as issues of language, politics, and cultural difference have come to the fore. Drawing on a wide...