“Read the Classics” They Said... But Why Are They All Western ?
“Read the classics,” they say — in classrooms, in reading challenges, in thinkpieces about anti-intellectualism. And yes, I agree: literacy matters. Context matters. Critical reading matters.
But have you ever actually looked up a list of “must-read classics”? I did.
Just for fun, I googled “classic literature” and clicked on the first five websites that popped up : Macmillan, Penguin, Pen & Poison, Goodreads, and The Greatest Books.
I am data girlie so I decided to track the nationalities of the authors mentioned in each of their lists. It’s not a rigorous study (I’m not a publishing house or a university archive), but here’s the thing: the results didn’t surprise me. At all.
From Penguin to Goodreads to indie blogs, these lists are almost entirely Western — mostly British, American, French. The literary canon is overwhelmingly shaped by imperial power. Even when Russian or German authors are thrown in, non-Western voices are basically absent.
The percentage of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, or Indigenous authors is close to zero. Not because they didn’t write brilliant books, but because they’re not what we’re taught to call “classic.”
And that’s a problem.
Because the idea of “classics” isn’t neutral. It’s institutional. It’s political. It’s imperial.
What we call “the literary canon” is a product of Western dominance. It’s shaped by who held power : economically, academically, and culturally.
It reflects which countries built publishing empires, which languages were globalized, which authors had the backing of universities, critics, prizes. We talk a lot about colonialism in economics or politics, but literature has its empires too.
The global canon is still mostly made in London, Paris, and New York.
Even the term “World Literature” often just means non-Western books chosen by Western gatekeepers, translated by Western presses, reviewed by Western critics.
There are literary classics in Urdu, Swahili, Tamil, Arabic, Korean.
But most of them are never translated, never taught, never included in what we call “a classic.”
Ismat Chughtai and Saadat Hasan Manto were writing at the same time as Virginia Woolf and Albert Camus —and yet who gets taught worldwide? Who gets quoted in essays and book clubs and high school syllabi?
That’s not just coincidence. That’s cultural imperialism.
So when we say we’re fighting anti-intellectualism by “reading the classics” , we need to ask: Whose intellectual legacy are we preserving? And whose are we still ignoring?
If we don’t expand our idea of what “a classic” can be, we’re just reinforcing a literary empire with a prettier cover.
So if you’re a fan of classics (and I say this with love) please take a moment to look at your shelf. Are your “classics” only Western?
If yes, maybe it’s time to ask: Whose stories are being left out and why?
