World Literature is not just a popular subject in its own right, but is infiltrating every aspect of literary study as the concept of national literatures, language and translation have been re-framed by World Literature. The Routledge World Literature Reader offers the ideal introduction to the theories and debates surrounding World Literature through extracts from the essential texts and writers in the field. The Reader offers a number of different pathways through the material, all addressing the essential themes of globalization; cosmopolitanism; post/trans-nationalism; translation and nationalism.