The Novel as Global Form Project: Critical Reception and Circulation Data

The present dataset traces the critical reception and international circulation of a selection of contemporary novels published between years 1989 and 2021 that can be productively read through the lens of the “global novel” debate. The archive retrieves more than 1500 data entries concerning the translation, circulation and consecration of our corpus novels. This includes all original and translated editions, literary reviews and interviews with the authors in different countries, specialized academic works, awarded or short-listed literary prizes, film and theater adaptations, as well as metadata from relevant literary agents involved in their international circulation–from translators to literary agents, foreign rights agents, and publishers. These data have served as the basis for the qualitative case studies carried out within the framework of the project “The Novel as Global Form. Poetic Challenges and Cross-border Literary Circulation” (Spanish Research Agency, PID2020-118610GA-I00) of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) in Barcelona, Spain.

Compiled data respond to the need to answer project questions such as “How globally do ‘global authors’ actually circulate?”, “What paths of circulation and recognition emerge when we consider non-Anglophone authors?”“, and “What is the role of gender in the writing and editorial process?”. In this case, data includes parameters that respond to the project research questions and might be uneven in relation to other matters, especially regarding geographical or linguistic representativeness, which was not the project’s focus.

The project's selected novels are the following: Norwegian Gert Nygårdshaug’s Mengele Zoo (1989); Georgian Aka Morchiladze’s მოგზაურობა ყარაბაღში (Journey to Karabakh, 1992); Colombian Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s Historia secreta de Costaguana (The Secret History of Costaguana, 2007); Polish Olga Tokarczuk’s Bieguni (Flights, 2008); Brazilian Patricia Melo’s O Ladrão de Cadáveres (The Body Snatcher, 2010); Argentinian Ariana Harwicz’s Mátate, amor (Die, My Love, 2012); South African and Australian J. M. Coetzee’s Jesus trilogy (The Childhood of Jesus, 2013, The Schooldays of Jesus, 2016, and The Death of Jesus, 2019); Nino Haratischwili’s Das achte Leben (für Brilka) (The Eight Life (for Brilka), 2014); Brazilian Carla Madeira‘s Tudo é rio (‘Everything is Rio’, 2014); Argentinian Samanta Schweblin’s Distancia de rescate (Fever Dream, 2014); Italian Bruno Arpaia’s Qualcosa, là fuori (‘Something, Out There’, 2016); French Élisabeth Filhol’s Doggerland (2019); Lebanese Zena El Khalil’s Beirut, I Love You (2019); Catalan Irene Solà’s Canto jo i la muntanya balla (When I Sing, Mountains Dance, 2019), and Turkish-British Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees (2021).