Inter / national / ization

Abstract

Using the case of Algeria, this article shows that the national and the international—also nationalization and internationalization—in peripheral literary fields do not happen in opposition to each other but are two sides of the same coin. I argue that we should think of this as a transnational literary field. Even though they compete with one another, writers within these fields are always connected. Furthermore, the characteristics of the two poles, in terms of their relative autonomy from political and economic constraints, are not as systematically opposed to one another as Pascale Casanova suggests. Nationalization and internationalization are also frequently intertwined: the material internationalization of texts and writers can reinforce the symbolic nationalization of a literature (e.g. its identification in the international world as “Algerian literature”). Recognizing this also calls into question assertions by scholars such as Homi Bhabha who assert that internationalization of literature goes hand in hand with its hybridization.