THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, OR FOR THE IMPOSSIBLE ESCAPE (THE COLLECTION EAST, WEST AND THE NOVEL FURY BY SALMAN RUSHDIE)

Abstract

The notion of a new comparativism in literary studies shared by critics like Theo D’haen, Pascale Casanova, Michel Lobry, Walter Mignolo, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, and many others is associated with questioning the dominant Eurocentrism, suggesting that regarding the ideas, messages, and projections taking over literature today, the Euro-American system is changing and in future could even become peripheral to the new one (D’haen, 2012). Even if this does not happen, one should not ignore that the world of literature looks different when viewed from less dominant points of view. We share the idea that the cultures that stay isolated wither away; on the other hand, the cultures that remain confined within themselves deform, and only those cultures that maintain the balance of borrowing and lending tend to be healthy and thriving, hence the insistence on the interaction between the different cultures based on equality and mutual respect, because the imitation of the Western model is dangerous when it is internationalized in the intellectual concept of the world in the culture and literature of the nations that are not part of the Euro center. The inherent vitality of the crossroads literature sounds strange against the background of late-twentieth-century literature.