Reading ethically in the context of globalization through Austerlitz and 2666

Abstract

This study focuses on the question of how to read ethically in the present context of globalization. Globalization is a process that integrates literary markets, introducing a vast amount of new and historical material into global literary circulation, while, at the same time, spreading the condition of postmodernity to every corner of the world. Its impact on contemporary reading practices and possible solutions to this challenge have been studied by theoreticians of world literature. However, these studies are directed towards an academic audience and not concerned with the ethics of reading. This study attempts to recover a contemporary history and ethics of reading through the analysis of W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz and Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, and finds in them an argument for an ethical reading practice that calls for retelling the stories we encounter through reading and listening, and makes an additional argument for writing, when possible, in order to transmit these stories to those “others” geographically and temporally removed from us.