Over the past two decades, the constant epistemological renewal that has characterized critical discourse in the humanities has given rise to the concept of the ‘market’ which accords a central role to the notion of globalization. Presented simultaneously as ‘paradigm’, ‘logic’, ‘mechanism’ and ‘rhetoric’, this concept of the market has also shaped a number of discursive and theoretical positions. For example, critics have debated ‘l'invention du marché’ [the invention of the market] (Norel, 2004), the ‘temps du marché’ [era of the market] (Laïdi, 2000: 173), the ‘primat de la rationalité marchande’ [primacy of market rationality] as a form of modern ‘rationalité’ [rationality] (Castillo Durante, 2004: 17) and the ‘procès de marchandisation’ [commodification process] as a ‘monde spectral’ [spectral world] (Fradin, 2005: 206) that haunts the critical discourse of modernity. It is within this context of paradigmatic transformation, linked in turn to various manifestations of globalization, that the relevance and validity of certain contemporary critical concepts require closer examination.

Amongst the modish concepts that have generated debate and often contradictory commentary is that of littérature-monde, which Michel Le Bris introduced in his 1992 edited volume, Pour une littérature voyageuse, and which was then further developed by the forty-four writers who signed the littérature-monde manifesto in Le Monde on 16 March 2007 (hereafter referred to as the Manifesto).