Abstract
This article addresses circulation and exchange in the Global South by examining the case of Biblioteca Ayacucho (1973), a transnational collection of over 500 books from several Latin American countries. Conceived as an “instrument for Latin American integration,” Ayachucho sought to connect the region by assembling and disseminating its diverse cultural and intellectual traditions. I discuss Ayacucho’s strategies of transnationalization which, in addition to book publishing, also relied on networks of intellectual collaboration and exchange. Focusing on its Brazilian titles, I argue that Ayacucho articulates a model of world literature that employs a contextually grounded yet transnationally based framework. By engaging Latin American specialists and relying on local scholarship, Ayacucho offers an inclusive model of world literature that allies both distant and close reading in the construction of a transnational literature. As such, it defies established assumptions about literary circulation and center-based conceptions of world literature.