| Abstract
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This essay explores strategies of world literary comparison when ultraminor literatures are juxtaposed with dominant literary traditions such as the global Anglophone. By bringing an English and a Hindi novel in conversation, the essay underlines their “multilingual” composition, whereby one language becomes a vehicle for several other languages, dialects, sociolects, regional linguistic variations and creole, thus calling for a new critical framework of evaluation within the national and the world-literary sphere. The essay engages with a new theoretical term in world literary studies, “ultraminor literature” in order to re-evaluate two other terms: the “great unread,” and the “untranslatable.” The essay argues that the idea of “untranslatability” denies any room for multi-locational and multilingual histories of linguistic traditions. Furthermore, untranslatability creates hierarchies of readerships and access, which can be confronted by engaging with linguistic code-stitching and the multilingual composition of ultraminor literatures. This essay explores strategies of world literary comparison when ultraminor literatures are juxtaposed with dominant literary traditions such as the global Anglophone. By bringing an English and a Hindi novel in conversation, the essay underlines their “multilingual” composition, whereby one language becomes a vehicle for several other languages, dialects, sociolects, regional linguistic variations and creole, thus calling for a new critical framework of evaluation within the national and the world-literary sphere. The essay engages with a new theoretical term in world literary studies, “ultraminor literature” in order to re-evaluate two other terms: the “great unread,” and the “untranslatable.” The essay argues that the idea of “untranslatability” denies any room for multi-locational and multilingual histories of linguistic traditions. Furthermore, untranslatability creates hierarchies of readerships and access, which can be confronted by engaging with linguistic code-stitching and the multilingual composition of ultraminor literatures.
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