Literary Routes: Migration, Islands, and the Creative Economy

Abstract

Exploring the links among accelerating patterns of migration, homogenizing forces of globalization, and transnational sites of creativity, this essay highlights the contributions that francophone voices from islands of the global South have made to the diversification of the knowledge economy. We discuss the critical effectiveness of literature as an agent of cultural change, focusing on minor writers who reach wide audiences by negotiating new pathways into the literary marketplace. The Comoran Soeuf Elbadawi, the Malagasy Jean-Luc Raharimanana, the Mauritians Ananda Devi and Shenaz Patel, and the Tahitian Chantal Spitz instigate literary dialogues that underscore ways of reimagining our world and redefining world literature. The issues they raise reveal the enduring relevance of literary studies and its interpretive approaches to a full appreciation of human diversity, which cannot be captured by purely quantitative methods.