Over a dark and quiet empire
alone I fly-and emvy you,
two-headed eagle who at least
have always yourself to talk to.
– Andrei Voznsensky
Whatever the concerns of seeking writing of substance in litSA pages, it still leaves unanswered the crucial and oft-neglected question about south asian writing in English: who, or rather, where is the reader? Would comparison between Latin American literature and the more recent south asian literature in English prove fruitful? Only perhaps to the extent (with deference to their un-shared histories, different colonial pasts, the status of Spanish as the lingua franca of the region) of their respective entries into world literature.
All are agreed on the point that south asian literature in English is, to requisition a phrase from the past, of recent vintage. By contrast, before its 'discovery' by the English-speaking world, the literature of Latin America already enjoyed immense popularity with readers in South America and the writers (such as Borges, Neruda or Paz) themselves were already distinguished by their publications in the original Spanish. The project in bringing Latin American literature to global consumption was thus mostly preoccupied with the problems of translation of the original works into English.