Gatekeepers: The Emergence of World Literature and the 1960s

by William Marling

Overview

The romantic idea of the writer as an isolated genius has been discredited, but there are few empirical studies documenting the role of "gatekeeping" in the literary process. How do friends, agents, editors, translators, small publishers, and reviewers-not to mention the changes in technology and the publishing industry-shape the literary process? This matrix is further complicated when books cross cultural and language barriers, that is, when they become part of world literature.

Gatekeepers builds on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Randall Collins, James English, and Mark McGurl, describing the multi-layered gatekeeping process in the context of World Literature after the 1960s. It focuses on four case studies: Gabriel García Márquez, Charles Bukowski, Paul Auster and Haruki Murakami. The two American authors achieved remarkable success overseas owing to canny gatekeepers; the two international authors benefited tremendously from well-curated translation into English.

Rich in archival materials (correspondence between authors, editors, and translators, and publishing industry analyses), interviews with publishers and translators, and close readings of translations, this study shows how the process and production of literature depends on the larger social forces of a given historical moment. William Marling also documents the ever-increasing Anglo-centric dictate on the gatekeeping process. World literature, the book argues, is not so much a "republic of letters" as a field of chance on which the conversation is partly bracketed by historic events and technological opportunities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190274146
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/12/2016
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

William H. Marling is Professor of English and World Literature at Case Western Reserve University. A former journalist, he has published several books, including How American Is Globalization? and The American Roman Noir.

Table of Contents

Introduction - Gatekeeping and World Literature
Chapter 1 - Gabriel García Márquez: gatekeepers and prise de position
Chapter 2 - Charles Bukowski and the Entrepreneurs of World Literature
Chapter 3 - Paul Auster: "Bootstrapping" and foreign "exile."
Chapter 4 - Haruki Murakami: the prizes, process, and production of World Literature
Conclusion - Writers, Gatekeepers, Publishing, and History

Editorial Reviews

"Written in clear, mostly jargon-free prose (except for its devotion to Collins's terms), the individual chapters provide career biographies of each author that are full of interesting and revealing anecdotes, such as Bukowski's television appearances in Germany." —Michael Malouf, American Literature

"Along with its more traditional scholarly virtues, Gatekeepers is delightfully readable, not least for the sheer human interest that Marling discovers in the blow-by-blow stories of how four highly significant postwar writers achieved international standing. While this book is a serious foray into the sociology of culture, it is also the repository of lots of good stories." —Mark McGurl, author of The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing

"William Marling draws together a compelling account of the different gatekeepers involved in the success of the four major authors who form his case studies. At the same time, his work stresses the crucial role of translation in the business of World Literature and traces the increasing professionalization of the work of the literary translator." —Jeremy Munday, author of Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications

"Accessibly written and impeccably researched, Gatekeepers successfully establishes the centrality of cultural intermediaries and social networks in determining the canon of contemporary world literature. It is an essential contribution to the ongoing discussion of the cultural and political stakes of literary translation in the era of global English." —Loren Glass, author of Counterculture Colophon: Grove Press, the Evergreen Review, and the Incorporation of the Avant-Garde

"Marling offers a major advance in the theory of literary fields. An aspiring writer attracts supportive networks by displaying an abundance of emotional energy-confidence, enthusiasm-that attracts attention and spreads the emotional glow first in small local networks, then bridging to larger ones. Creativity is social not just because that is how one learns the previous literature and techniques, but as it focuses awareness of what part of the writer's cultural capital is the pathway to success." —Randall Collins, author of Napoleon Never Slept: How Great Leaders Leverage Social Energy

"This excellent study of the catalysts for four writers-Gabriel García Márquez, Charles Bukowski, Paul Auster, and Ha-ruki Murakami-is fascinating to read." —World Literature Today

From the Publisher