Metropolitan literatures distort any theory of third-world writing built from them.

Evidence

It is doubtful, of course, that ‘magical realism’ has become ‘the literary language of the emergent post-colonial world’, any more than the ‘national allegory’ is the unitary generic form for all Third World narrativities, as Jameson would contend. Such pronouncements are now routine features of the metropolitan theory’s inflationary rhetoric. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 110 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Rare would be a modern intellectual in Asia or Africa who does not know at least one European language; equ~lly rare would be, on the other side, a major literary theorist in Europe or the United States who has ever bothered with an Asian or African language; and the enormous industry of translation which circulates texts among the advanced capitalist countries grinds erratically and slowly when it comes to translation from Asian or African languages. The upshot is that major literary traditionssuch as those of Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Telegu and half a dozen others from India aloneremain, beyond a few texts here and there, virtually unknown to the American literary theorist. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 376 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: World literature is a material category of metropolitan accumulation, not a universal condition — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 78; Metropolitan theory inflates single genres into universal forms for the Third World — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 110; Structural linguistic asymmetry makes the third-world text unknowable to metropolitan theorists — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 376 (+1 more)

Related

• Metropolitan theory idealized the singularized Third World as the site of cultural opposition (similarity 0.95)
• Structural linguistic asymmetry makes the third-world text unknowable to metropolitan theorists (similarity 0.93)
• Third World Literature is a metropolitan fabrication, not a pre-existing category (similarity 0.90)
• Metropolitan theory inflates single genres into universal forms for the Third World (similarity 0.89)
• The Third World Literature category emerged from postwar metropolitan migration, not from textual accumulation (similarity 0.89)
• Third World Literature as a category is built on Western language archives (similarity 0.89)
• World literature is a material category of metropolitan accumulation, not a universal condition (similarity 0.88)
• Third World Literature as a field was professionalized by metropolitan universities (similarity 0.88)
• Third World Literature emerged only through the mediating archive of Western languages (similarity 0.87)
• Claims that homogenize ‘Third World Literature’ obscure the imperialist-determined fortunes of its producing bourgeoisie (similarity 0.87)
• Literary texts carry metropolitan processes of selection and classification inscribed in their texture (similarity 0.86)
• Local oral literatures resist absorption into any unified Third World Literature category (similarity 0.86)
• Non-Western literature reaches readers mediated by metropolitan selection (similarity 0.85)
• Third World literary theory effaces Marxism-rooted radical cultural heritage (similarity 0.85)
• Third-world literature reaches metropolitan readers through metropolitan-controlled grids (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• Metropolitan theory inflates single genres into universal forms for the Third World #corroborates (0.85) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 110
• Structural linguistic asymmetry makes the third-world text unknowable to metropolitan theorists #expands (0.80) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 376
• Third World Literature as a field was professionalized by metropolitan universities #expands (0.75)