When does a piece of writing become “global literature” or “world literature”? The question may seem to be as old as writing itself, but it is in fact historical. And it has as much to do with the manner in which the English language has become globalised as a result of Britain’s colonial past as it does with the way in which the literature of other parts of the non-English-speaking world has been relegated to the margins of the exotic and foreign.

In the course of this long historical process, the literature of many societies has been deemed as parochial or “local” by comparison, and this has been to our own detriment as we have overlooked the many important works of literature that have emerged in other non-Western societies.

… Farish A Noor is Associate Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University. The exhibition, Tales Of The Malay World: Manuscripts And Early Books, is on now at the National Library of Singapore, until Feb 25 next year.