World Literatures, Cosmopolitan Publics: Welcoming the PEN Club to Buenos Aires in 1936

MÓNICA SZURMUK; FERNANDO DEGIOVANNI

Journal of World Literature

Harvard U/Brill

Lugar: Cambridge, MA; Año: 2019 vol. 4 p. 259 - 282

2405-6472

In this article we use the rich sources provided by the press coverage of the 1936Congress of the PEN Club in Buenos Aires to examine international interactionsaround literature in times of violence and censorship. We contend that he Congressallows for a reading of the different worlds of literature beyond the traditional categoriesof text, reader, writer and critic. Our study moves away from canonical authors andliterature as an institution to focus on world literature as a form of experience. We focuson the producers and consumers of literature as embodied multilingual presences andthereby provide a more nuanced understanding of world literature. Bruce Robbins?snotion of ?cosmopolitanisms from below? allows us to rethink the notion of worldliterature within the framework of a ?lived? cosmopolitanism deployed at a time ofpolitical danger.