Dutch Interbellum Canons and World Literature A. Roland Holst, M. Nijhoff, J. Slauerhoff

This text takes a wholly new look at a major early twentieth-century Dutch poet and novelist from the perspective of world literature, situating his work in both a national and a world literary context as measured against contemporaries and near-contemporaries such as Conrad, Pound, Brecht, Segalen, and Malraux. Exemplifying how an author from a 'minor' literature may be a 'major' world author, this book considers the debates within World Literature regarding the classification of literatures as 'major' and 'minor', canon formation within Dutch literature, Slauerhoff's position in the Dutch tradition as well as well as his contribution to world literature, particularly focusing on his East Asian poems, his East Asian novels and stories and his poetry and prose set in Latin America. This book is a key read for scholars and students of comparative literature, world literature, European literature, and Dutch literature. Lucid in style, innovative in approach, surprisingly fresh qua topic, this book opens new horizons for literary studies.  

Theo D'haen is Emeritus Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Leuven (Louvain) in Belgium, and earlier taught at Leiden and Utrecht. He was Erasmus Chair and Senior Fulbright Scholar at Harvard, Visiting Professor at the Sorbonne, the University of Vienna, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the University of Sichuan at Chengdu. Past President of FILLM, Member Academia Europaea, Fellow English Association.