Sanza cultura, e d' abitanti nuda: e-Literature in the Global Arena

Electronic literature's ideal reader is a subjectivity who perceives himself/herself as belonging to a linguistic, local culture as well as to a trans-national, cross-cultural net of relationships (Internet). Digital narration shapes and makes the new globalized cultural reality emerge as a new social connective tissue reliant on transmission protocols and a globally shared technology. Indeed, it comprises two different linguistic codes: the verbal language, especially English used by authors as a common linguistic base of communication with a multilingual readership, and the machine code, that works as an interface between hardware and text, which we can extend to include operating systems, applications and a variety of software widely shared all over the world to allow global communication. The hybrid nature of authorship, the question of a national literary identity, the publishing market and the limits of translation are all themes taken into consideration.