Literature has always needed somewhere to happen.
Clusters of burnt red brick, stone, wood, and tiles spread across 23 hectares of land to create the Nalanda Mahāvihāra. Between the 5th and 12th centuries CE, Nalanda Mahāvihāra was considered one of the greatest centres of learning in the ancient world and one of the first residential universities in Bihar, an eastern state of India. Scholars from Tibet, China, Korea and Central Asia journeyed to the vihāra, or monastery, to study philosophy, mathematics and art, contributing to the spread and development of Buddhist literature across Asia.
In the medieval monasteries of the West, dark, rectangular, wooden desks and benches are arranged within vast spaces made of limestone and granite. For scribes, a scriptorium was a place for reading, illuminating and copying texts. Common rooms, libraries and cloisters also became important spaces for reading and writing.
Floors draped with carpets, cushions lining the walls, and tables for coffee and tea inhabit the rooms of majālis. Derived from the Arabic root j-l-s, and widely used in both Arabic and Ottoman Turkish, the word majlis means "a place where one sits." Across the Islamic world, majālis were spaces for transmitting oral heritage, including folk stories, folk songs and poetry. While some majālis were associated with scholars, community leaders and elites, these 'sitting places' influenced artistic and scholarly traditions across the Islamic world.
Throughout history, academic and religious spaces have always existed, public and private, informal and formal, for literary affairs. Then there are spaces created by people in order to be seen and exist in ways that are beyond what is expected of them.
Speakeasies, jazz clubs, theaters and private homes became common cultural hubs for members of the Harlem Renaissance, also known as ‘The New Negro Movement’. The movement pushed black literary, art and musical talent to the forefront of American culture. And though not explicitly open, writers like Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman included homoerotic themes in their works, which laid the foundation for future movements related to queer and civil rights. Under the Prohibition era, the Harlem Renaissance was a private and public display of self-determination for black Americans.
Authors and poets of the Generación del 27 in Seville and Madrid met through tertulias, a type of literary gathering that initially took place in private homes and estates before migrating to cafés, bars, salons and restaurants. The writers of the Beat Generation gathered in Greenwich Village, New York City during the 1950s, turning speakeasies, pubs and Washington Square Park into places for meetings, readings and literary exchange. Later, some Beat writers sought their bohemian refuge in the infamous "Interzone," a post-war Tangier where nearly all vices were tolerated, at best. Café Baba and Café Hafa were two famous spaces that served as meeting places for literary expatriates, musicians and artists.
Historical spaces often tell us who was allowed to participate, who was excluded, and who had to create new spaces of their own.
Yes, preserving literature in religious, academic and cultural institutions is a vital task. But the metrics of “proper” and “classic” are relative to the commands of those who wield power. Elite men, philosophers, kings, scribes, monks, scholars and court-favored vagabonds have shaped the way we think about literature from the very beginning.
Now, literature exists in unassuming corners of this digital and physical world. Online repositories like Wattpad, Archive of Our Own and Webtoon give young, emerging writers and comic artists places to share their work. Literature’s essence exists in public library reading circles, book clubs and workshops. In local literary festivals. In zines and snail mail clubs. In coffee shops that host trivia nights and writing clubs. In Little Free Libraries, digital archives, and in threads on Discord or Substack. In apps for audiobooks. In printmaking shops. In libraries being rebuilt from genocide, and in countries with government book bans.
Today, we can see what is possible when literature is created by working-class writers and poets outside of elite academic institutions and the traditional publishing industry. It is important to note that tradition should not die, and sets of standards should not be neglected. Only that we must recognize that what has truly been accessible was only made so because of what was once inaccessible.
Institutions that create unnecessary barriers during the excavation, the discovery, and the curiosity phases for those wanting to live a literary life are the reason why literature can never die. Even in different and unfavorable conditions, it is the people who will continue to find ways to create portals, to crack into the material of what is not allowed or what is deemed “noble” or successful based on the pious market’s monologue. As coined in the wise words of a beloved fictional character, Dr. Ian Malcolm, literature, like life, "will find a way.”