AGAINST BOOK POISONING: WORLD LITERATURE’S NARRATIVES AND THE CASE OF THE “DICTIONARY OF THE KHAZARS”

The processes of translation and critical reception of a literary work being adopted as a text of world literature and therefore translated into English, before all other factors, are governed by (social) narratives, as proposed by Somers and Gibson (1994) and Mona Baker (2006). Being a part of a larger system, the narratives in question are perceived as an instrument in “rewriting and manipulation” (Lefevere 1992) establishing an international or global setup of world literature studies. A case study examining the position/interpretation of The Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić within this framework serves as an illustration of the process.