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In Aleksis Kivi and/as World Literature Douglas Robinson tracks the global reception of Aleksis Kivi (1834-1872) as a wedge for exploring the nature and boundaries of world literature, and the contributions made by translators to it.

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Aleksis Kivi (1834-1872) is Finland´s greatest writer. His great 1870 novel The Brothers Seven has been translated 59 times into 34 languages. Is he world literature, or not? In Aleksis Kivi and/as World Literature Douglas Robinson uses this question as a wedge for exploring the nature and nurture of world literature, and the contributions made by translators to it.

Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari´s notion of major and minor literature, Robinson argues that translators have mainly "majoritized" Kivi-translated him respectfully-and so created images of literary tourism that ill suit recognition as world literature. Far better, he insists, is the impulse to minoritize-to find and celebrate the minor writer in Kivi, who " sends the major language racing ."

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Douglas Robinson, Ph.D. (1983), University of Washington, is Chair Professor of English at HKBU. An accomplished literary translator, he has also translated Aleksis Kivi´s The Brothers Seven and Heath Cobblers . He has published twenty monographs and many articles on translation and comparative literature.

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