Explores semi-peripheral literary cultures and their relations to the cosmopolitan and the vernacular, using the Swedish context as a case study.

This open access book uses Swedish literature and the Swedish publishing field as recurring examples todescribe and analyse the role of the literary semi-peripheral position in world literature from various perspectives and on meso, micro and macro levels, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. This includes the role of translation in the semi-periphery and the conditions under which literature travels to and from that position. The focus is not on Sweden, as such, but rather on the semi-peripheral transitional space as exemplified by the Swedish case.

Consisting of three co-written chapters, this study sheds light on what might be called the semi-peripheral condition or the semi-periphery as an area of transition. As part of the Cosmopolitan and Vernacular Dynamics in World Literatures series, it makes continuous use of the concepts of 'cosmopolitan' and 'vernacular' - or rather, the processual terms, cosmopolitanization and vernacularization - which provide an overall structure to the analysis of literature and literary phenomena. In this way, the authors show that the semi-periphery is an ideal point of departure to further the understanding of world literature, because it is a place where the cosmopolitan (the literary universal) and the vernacular (the rootedness in a particular culture or place) interact in ways that have not yet been thoroughly explored.

The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

By framing Sweden as a "semi-peripheral" space of world literary networks, Northern Crossings opens up new cross-ways of scrutinizing translation-flows, creation of readerships and recognition of literary works through the Nobel Prize in the public sphere. An interesting co-authored work which underscores benefits of collaborative work in World Literature Studies.