Abstract
After having discussed the various definitions of World Literature provided by Karel Čapek in the article (( Jak se dělá světová literatura }} ((( How to Make World Literature }}), as well as the various ways in which minor literatures may achieve world-wide recognition, I turn the attention to Čapek's most famous novel, Válka s mloky (The War with the Newts). With this, I aim to demonstrate that the critical doxa on this classic of the European literary canon can be challenged by taking into account the unequal power-relations within the literary system.
This joint reading of Čapek's essay and novel-never undertaken by the critics-has three goals. The first is to provide a new interpretation of Capek's novel: far from being exclusively a (( thesis novel }} against capitalism, militarism, and Nazism (as most of the critics affirm), The War with the Newts also thematizes the contemporary configuration of the hierarchical relationships between languages, cultures, and nations.
In other words, it simultaneously reflects and contests the relationships between the centres and peripheries of the literary system to which it belongs. The second aim is to bring to light an unknown chapter of the history of the concept of World Literature through the lens of an author who, coming from a semi-peripheral space himself, nevertheless managed to attract international attention and become a reference for European modernism and science-fiction.
Finally, I claim that, in order to properly understand World Literature, we need to link close and distant reading.