A Re-deliberation of Minzu Literature and World Literature : The Literary World in Alai’s Writing

This essay examines the tension between minzu (roughly an equivalent of “ethnic” and “national”) and world literature by investigating Tibetan-Chinese writer Alai’s Gesar and his other writings. For Alai, the tension between minzu and world literature is a moot question. He challenges many assumptions of both minzu and world literature through his metafictional rewriting of Gesar and alerts us to the power of differentiation. Alai’s unique views urge us to reflect on the politics of a non-Western ethnic writer writing in, to, and for the world.