On peripheral writers ...

“... to write, especially in peripheral countries, is to occupy a space that is already occupied.”

“It is characteristic of a peripheral writer, trained in the conviction that great literature is in other countries, to be anxious to know – in addition to its own – so many others; only a writer who believes that everything has been written devotes his work to reflecting upon the the quotes of others, upon reading, translation, and plagiarism …”

(Néstor Garcia Canclini, Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity. p. 75)