B. Venkat Mani’s Recoding World Literature: Libraries, Print Culture, and Germany’s Pact with Books (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017) is the winner of the 2018 Best Book Prize of the German Studies Association in Germanistik and Cultural Studies (for a book published in 2016 or 2017). This prize is funded through the North American office of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). The laudatio reads:
B. Venkat Mani’s Recoding World Literature is a fantastic exploration of his term “bibliomigrancy.” His treatment of the physical and virtual circulation and consumption of world literature masterfully uses a variety of approaches and examples from world literatures—while remaining anchored in the German tradition—to institutional history, history of publishing, and Weltliteratur. Mani’s book is entirely original, makes excellent use of a well-researched archive, and employs a strong voice. It is truly outstanding: vast in scope and insight and covers broad intellectual ground. Recoding World Literature seems both of the present and historically sweeping. It’s the kind of book that will re-frame a lot of conversations. Venkat Mani leads the pack owing to his integration of German literature and culture within the world paradigm and his treatment of the mobility of texts across media and geography. It is a smart and forward-looking book. He engages new media and electronic texts within the print context and makes it relevant for us all. It is an ideal GSA prize winning book because it is ambitious, very well written, and nuanced in its research.