World Literature Today, January 2012 |
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| Editor-in-chief | Daniel Simon (interim) |
|---|---|
| Categories | Literature, Culture, International |
| Frequency | 6 per year |
| Publisher | University of Oklahoma |
| First issue | January 1927 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | American English |
| Website | http://www.worldliteraturetoday.com |
| ISSN | 0196-3570 |
World Literature Today is an American magazine of international literature and culture, published bimonthly at the University of Oklahoma, Norman. The magazine presents essays, poetry, fiction, and book reviews from all over the world in a format accessible to a broad audience. Its mission is to serve as an engaging, informative index to contemporary international literature.[1] It was founded as Books Abroad in 1927 by Roy Temple House, chair of the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Oklahoma. In January 1977, the journal assumed its present name, World Literature Today.[2]
Contents |
The history of World Literature Today is a story of men and women of letters deeply committed to advancing the cause of literature, art, and culture.[3] The emergence of an internationally-acclaimed journal in a small campus town of the American heartland is a phenomenon conceived as a natural extension of the intellectual encounters of scholars, students, and the reading public within a large academic research institution. The 1980 Nobel Laureate and 1978 Neustadt Prize winner Czesław Miłosz once declared, “If WLT were not in existence, we would have to invent it. It fulfills the unique role of bringing information about works little known or inaccessible in English-speaking countries.”[4]
The journal publishes articles, book reviews, and other features, while its offices function as a humanities center for a variety of cultural activities, as the magazine staff organizes conferences and symposia, bestows literary prizes (see Neustadt International Prize for Literature and NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature), and encourages the work of students, scholars, researchers, and readers of world literature everywhere. Devoted to the presentation and discussion of current literature in major and lesser-known languages of the world, WLT is the only international magazine focused on comprehensive and informative coverage of developments in contemporary literatures worldwide. WLT frequently represents the sole source available anywhere for information on the less familiar—often unjustly overlooked—literary traditions of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.[5]
Roy Temple House’s driving idea for the original publication came from his desire to offer non-ideological commentary on a variety of literatures to counter what he saw as America’s dangerous trend toward isolationism in the 1920s. House hoped to promote more extensive and more thoughtful international understanding through the communication of a variety of opinions on art, literature, and ideas. As he wrote in the first issue of Books Abroad, he was aware of the difficulties of his new enterprise, of the looming challenges and obstacles, but he could also clearly sensed the satisfaction and rewards the future would bring:
"[The editors] are undertaking to distribute four times a year a little magazine of really useful information concerning the more important book publications of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, the South American republics, and perhaps other countries. [The editors] are hard-worked modern language teachers in a modest institution, without the leisure, the equipment, or the experience to do this work as well and thoroughly as they wish it might be done. They will be criticized for their omissions and inclusions, for their lack of a hard and fast plan as to just what types of books shall be treated and what types left to other publications, for the amateurish character of some of their matter, for the opportunism which fully expects to change their policy here and there as circumstances may demand it. They offer their first number with fear and trembling, but with the conviction that they are undertaking a work which very much needed doing."[6]
In the recounting of the lore surrounding Books Abroad, colorful tales associated with the frequent visits of literary celebrities who traveled to the University of Oklahoma campus under the auspices of the journal’s affiliated programs (see Puterbaugh Conference on World Literature, for example) arise. One case in point involves Michel Butor, the celebrated French author and critic, who was the featured writer at the 1981 Puterbaugh Conference; he had already established a productive history with the University of Oklahoma as he had lectured on the university's campus in 1971 and had served as a juror for the Neustadt Prize in 1974 (the candidate he championed, Francis Ponge, won the award that year). During the 1981 visit, Butor gave seminars and delivered lectures on such topics as “Literature and Dream” and “The Origin of the Text,”[7] but perhaps the most memorable Butor text connected to his visit was the poem he wrote, adapted from the French by Ivar Ivask, entitled “An Evening in Norman,”[8] of which the first stanza reads: “My window faces west just as it does in Nice / where it’s deep night now / the rays of the moon’s first quarter / illuminate the sky both here and there.”
For Books Abroad, House and his editors began their work, a genuine labor of love, for no extra compensation or release time from their duties as university professors. Even the initial production costs were paid for from their own pockets. In 1931, these costs became more onerous, and the editors imposed a subscription rate—an amount charming to nostalgic readers and editors of today—of one dollar per year, though the editorial staff still received no extra salary.
House devised as the journal’s Latin motto “Lux a Peregre,” which can be translated as “Light from Abroad,” or “Light of Discovery.” The phrase accompanied the original logo, also conceived by House, of a full-rigged ship, a rich image which calls to mind not only adventure, as in venturing out toward unknown horizons, but also evokes harbor and beacon, as the academic community and university institution are perceived as a safe haven for the journal’s daily operation. In 1927 the quarterly began as a short publication of 32 pages. By its fiftieth year, Books Abroad had grown to more than 250 pages. In 2006 WLT switched from quarterly to bimonthly publication. It is one of the oldest continuously published literary periodicals in the United States, along with such other publications launched in the early twentieth century such as South Atlantic Quarterly (1902), Poetry (magazine) (1912), and The New Yorker (1925).
WLT also sponsors the biennial Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the annual Puterbaugh Conferences on World Literature.