Rethinking Minor Literature and Small Literature as Secondary Zone Literature

Open Access

Abstract

The aim of this article is to argue thatboth"minor literature" and "small literature"should be readdressedas Michel Ragon's "secondary zone literature"from three perspectives. Firstly, it will be argued that "minor and small literature" began to lose its theoretical capacitywith the advent of globalization after the new millennium. Secondly, the problems of "minor literature" and "small literature" will be updated. "Minor literature"mainly has two problems: 1) The first feature of "minor literature"runs the risk of not only dismissing all literature written by minorities in "minor languages", but also diminishing the possible meanings of the term, "minority"; and 2) The second and third characteristics of "minor literature"are unable to explain why only non-European artsareperceived to be political and collective. "Small literature"also has two problems: a) it fails to explain why countries thathardly qualify as 'small', face problems similar to those of "small literature" in the international literary context; and b) it does not have the capacity to explain the literature of minority and marginal groups within a nation or country. Thirdly, "minor and small literature" will be reconsidered as "secondary zone literature", not only in an attempt to emphasizecultural dynamics and power relations based on the visibility of various "minor & small" related literary works, but also to demonstrate that literature may beminor or small, but it always has quantitative implications.