Transnational Perspectives in the History of Contemporary Romanian Literature

Abstract

"Transnational Perspectives in The History of Contemporary Romanian Literature. Discussing literature from a global perspective requires a transnational view on the evolution and international integration of literature. Most recent World Literature studies imply such an analytic perspective when questioning the recognition of certain national literatures within the more developed ones. While using concepts such as “minor” or “major literature” or, more precisely, “central” or “peripheral literature,” attention needs to be paid, Prodan argues, when talking about the global acknowledgement of literature, especially of those literatures coming from “minor” and even isolated cultures. In The History of Contemporary Romanian Literature: 1990-2020, Mihai Iovănel proposes a thematic rather than a historical analysis of contemporary national literature with its periodized and temporal evolutions. The author includes, especially in the last chapter of his literary history, a transnational view of contemporary Romanian literature. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to analyse the way Romanian writers and their literary works are perceived by the critic as having “a transnational character.” Prodan also investigates how Iovănel succeeds in renewing critical strategies in literary historiography. Thus, this contribution is mainly dedicated to the last part of Mihai Iovănel’s History, which seeks out new strategies of transnational expansion of the spectrum of national literature, as the author also analyses the possibilities of a global integration and marketing of contemporary Romanian literature. Keywords: transnational literature, national literature, migration, literary history, periodization"