Editing Western canon (section)

===Expansion of the literary canon in the 20th century===
In the twentieth century there was a general reassessment of the [[literary canon]], including [[Women's writing in English|women's writing]], [[post-colonial literature]]s, [[LGBT literature|gay and lesbian literature]], writing by racialized minorities, working people's writing, and the cultural productions of historically marginalized groups. This reassessment has resulted in a whole scale expansion of what is considered "literature", and genres hitherto not regarded as "literary", such as children's writing, journals, letters, travel writing, and many others are now the subjects of scholarly interest.<ref name=Blain/><ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Buck |editor1-first=Claire |title=The Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature |publisher=Prentice Hall |year=1992 |page=vix}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Salzman |first=Paul |chapter=Introduction |title=Early Modern Women's Writing |publisher=Oxford UP |year=2000 |pages=ix–x}}</ref>

The Western literary canon has also expanded to include the literature of Asia, Africa, the [[Middle East]], and South America. Writers from Africa, Turkey, China, Egypt, Peru, and Colombia, Japan, etc., have received Nobel prizes since the late 1960s. Writers from Asia and Africa have also been nominated for, and also won, the [[List of winners and shortlisted authors of the Booker Prize for Fiction|Booker prize]] in recent years.

==== Feminism and the literary canon ====
{{See also|Écriture féminine|List of American feminist literature|List of feminist literature|List of feminist poets}}
[[File:Sartre and de Beauvoir at Balzac Memorial.jpg|thumb|[[Jean-Paul Sartre]] and [[Simone de Beauvoir]] at [[Balzac]] Memorial ]]

Susan Hardy Aitken argues that the Western canon has maintained itself by excluding and marginalising women, whilst idealising the works of men.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hardy Aiken |first1=Susan |title=Women and the Question of Canonicity |journal=College English |date=1986 |volume=48 |issue=3 |pages=289–292}}</ref> Where women's work is introduced it can be considered inappropriately rather than recognising the importance of their work; a work's greatness is judged against socially situated factors which exclude women, whilst being portrayed as an intellectual approach.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hardy Aiken |first1=Susan |title=Women and the Question of Canonicity |journal=College English |date=1986 |volume=48 |issue=3 |pages=290–293}}</ref>

The feminist movement produced both feminist fiction and non-fiction and created new interest in women's writing. It also prompted a general reevaluation of women's [[Women's history|historical]] and academic contributions in response to the belief that women's lives and contributions have been underrepresented as areas of scholarly interest.<ref name=Blain>{{cite book |author=Blain, Virginia |author2=Clements, Patricia |author3=Grundy, Isobel |title=The feminist companion to literature in English: women writers from the Middle Ages to the present |year=1990 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=0-300-04854-8 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/feministcompanio00blai/page/ vii–x] |url=https://archive.org/details/feministcompanio00blai/page/ }}</ref>

However, in Britain and America at least women achieved major literary success from the late eighteenth century, and many major nineteenth-century British novelists were women, including [[Jane Austen]], the [[Brontës|Brontë family]], [[Elizabeth Gaskell]], and [[Mary Ann Evans|George Eliot]]. There were also three major female poets, [[Elizabeth Barrett Browning]],<ref name="Leighton">{{cite book|author=Angela Leighton|title=Elizabeth Barrett Browning|url=https://archive.org/details/elizabethbarrett00leig|url-access=registration|access-date=22 October 2011|year=1986|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-25451-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/elizabethbarrett00leig/page/8 8]–18}}</ref> [[Christina Rossetti]] and [[Emily Dickinson]].<ref name="Bloo9">Bloom (1999), 9</ref><ref>Ford (1966), 122</ref> In the twentieth century there were also many major female writers, including [[Katherine Mansfield]], [[Dorothy Richardson]], [[Virginia Woolf]], [[Eudora Welty]], and [[Marianne Moore]]. Notable female writers in France include [[Colette]], [[Simone de Beauvoir]], [[Marguerite Yourcenar]], [[Nathalie Sarraute]], [[Marguerite Duras]] and [[Françoise Sagan]].

Much of the early period of feminist literary scholarship was given over to the rediscovery and reclamation of texts written by women. [[Virago Press]] began to publish its large list of 19th and early 20th-century novels in 1975 and became one of the first commercial presses to join in the project of reclamation.

====African-American authors====
In the twentieth century, the Western literary canon started to include African writers not only from [[African-American literature|African-American writers]], but also from the [[African diaspora|wider African diaspora]] of writers in Britain, France, Latin America, and Africa. This correlated largely with the shift in social and political views during the [[civil rights movement]] in the United States.  The first global recognition came in 1950 when [[Gwendolyn Brooks]] was the first African American to win a [[Pulitzer Prize]] for Literature. American [[Toni Morrison]] was the first African-American woman to win the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]], in 1993.

Some early African-American writers were inspired to defy ubiquitous [[Racism|racial prejudice]] by proving themselves equal to [[European American]] authors. As Henry Louis Gates Jr., has said, "it is fair to describe the subtext of the history of black letters as this urge to refute the claim that because blacks had no written traditions they were bearers of an inferior culture."<ref name = "Stryz_p140">"The Other Ghost in Beloved: The Specter of the Scarlet Letter" by Jan Stryz from ''The New Romanticism: a collection of critical essays'' by Eberhard Alsen, p. 140, {{ISBN|0-8153-3547-4}}.</ref>

African-American writers were also attempting to subvert the literary and power traditions of the United States. Some scholars assert that writing has traditionally been seen as "something defined by the dominant culture as a white male activity."<ref name = "Stryz_p140"/> This means that, in American society, literary acceptance has traditionally been intimately tied in with the very power dynamics which perpetrated such evils as racial discrimination. By borrowing from and incorporating the non-written oral traditions and folk life of the [[African diaspora]], African-American literature broke "the mystique of connection between literary authority and [[patriarchal]] power."<ref>Quote from Marjorie Pryse in "The Other Ghost in Beloved: The Specter of the Scarlet Letter" by Jan Stryz, from ''The New Romanticism: a collection of critical essays'' by Eberhard Alsen, p. 140, {{ISBN|0-8153-3547-4}}.</ref> In producing their own literature, African Americans were able to establish their own literary traditions devoid of the European intellectual filter. This view of African-American literature as a tool in the struggle for African-American political and cultural liberation has been stated for decades, most famously by [[W. E. B. Du Bois]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Mason|first=Theodore O. Jr.|date=1997|title=African-American Theory and Criticism|url=http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/free/african-american_theory_and_criticism-_1.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000115080159/http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/free/african-american_theory_and_criticism-_1.html|archive-date=2000-01-15|access-date=2005-07-06|website=The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism}}</ref>
[[File:WoleSoyinka2015.jpg|thumb|Nobel laureate [[Wole Soyinka]] in 2015.]]

====Latin America====
[[File:Gabogarciamarquez1.png|thumb|left|[[García Márquez]] signing a copy of ''[[One Hundred Years of Solitude]]'' in [[Havana]], Cuba]]
[[Octavio Paz Lozano]] (1914–1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1981 [[Miguel de Cervantes Prize]], the 1982 [[Neustadt International Prize for Literature]], and the 1990 [[Nobel Prize in Literature]].

[[Gabriel García Márquez]]<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/garcia+marquez "García Márquez"]. ''[[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]''.</ref>  (1927–2014) was a [[Colombian people|Colombian]] novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and journalist. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century and one of the best in the [[Spanish literature|Spanish language]], he was awarded the 1972 [[Neustadt International Prize for Literature]] and the 1982 [[Nobel Prize in Literature]].<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1982/ | title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 1982 | access-date=18 April 2014}}</ref>

García Márquez started as a journalist, and wrote many acclaimed non-fiction works and short stories, but is best known for his novels, such as ''[[One Hundred Years of Solitude]]'' (1967), ''[[The Autumn of the Patriarch]]'' (1975), and ''[[Love in the Time of Cholera]]'' (1985). His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style labeled as [[magic realism]], which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations. Some of his works are set in a fictional village called [[Macondo]] (the town mainly inspired by his birthplace [[Aracataca]]), and most of them explore the theme of [[solitude]]. On his death in April 2014, [[Juan Manuel Santos]], the President of Colombia, described him as "the greatest Colombian who ever lived."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/19/gabrielgarciamarquez-colombia|title=Gabriel García Márquez: 'The greatest Colombian who ever lived'|first=Ed|last=Vulliamy|newspaper=The Observer |date=19 April 2014|via=www.theguardian.com}}</ref>

[[Mario Vargas Llosa]], (1936-2025)<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mario+vargas+llosa "Vargas Llosa"]  {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141231151539/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mario%2Bvargas%2Bllosa |date=December 31, 2014 }}. ''[[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]''.</ref> is a Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, essayist, college professor, and recipient of the 2010 [[Nobel Prize in Literature]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/perus-mario-vargas-llosa-wins-nobel-literature-prize-2100592.html|title=Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa wins Nobel Literature Prize|newspaper=[[The Independent]] | location=London|date=October 7, 2010}}</ref> Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a larger international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the [[Latin American Boom]].<ref>{{Citation |title=Library of Congress to Honor Mario Vargas Llosa |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-16-041/library-of-congress-to-honor-mario-vargas-llosa/2016-03-08/}}</ref> <!--<ref>{{Harvnb|Boland|Harvey|1988|p=7}} and {{Harvnb|Cevallos|1991|p=272}}</ref> These "citations" are unusable since no detail provided. --> Upon announcing the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, the [[Swedish Academy]] said it had been given to Vargas Llosa "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".<ref>{{cite web|title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 2010|publisher=Nobelprize|date=October 7, 2010|url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2010/|access-date=October 7, 2010}}</ref>