World Literature On The Internet
The World-Wide Web provides in many ways the logical medium for the global circulation of world literature, and many websites now enable readers around the world to sample the world’s literary productions. The website Words Without Borders offers a wide selection of fiction and poetry from around the world, and the Annenberg Foundation has created an ambitious thirteen-part DVD/web series produced by Boston’s public television station WGBH, “Invitation to World Literature.” The major survey anthologies all have extensive websites, providing background information, images, and links to resources on many authors. Finally, globally-oriented authors themselves are increasingly creating work for the internet. The Serbian experimentalist Milorad Pavić (1929-2009) was an early proponent of the possibilities of electronic modes of creation and reading, as can be seen on his website. Though Pavić remained primarily a print-based writer, the Korean/American duo known as Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries create their works entirely for internet distribution, often in several languages. World literature today exists in symbiosis with national literatures, enabling writers in small countries to reach out to global audiences, and helping readers around the world gain a better sense of the world around them as it has been reflected and refracted in the world’s literatures over the past five millennia.
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