William H. Marling is Professor of English and World Literature at Case Western Reserve University. A former journalist, he has published several books, including How American Is Globalization? and The American Roman Noir.

Winner of the College English Association of Ohio's (CEAO) Nancy Dasher Award (2014-2017)

"Written in clear, mostly jargon-free prose (except for its devotion to Collins's terms), the individual chapters provide career biographies of each author that are full of interesting and revealing anecdotes, such as Bukowski's television appearances in Germany." --Michael Malouf, American Literature

"Along with its more traditional scholarly virtues, Gatekeepers is delightfully readable, not least for the sheer human interest that Marling discovers in the blow-by-blow stories of how four highly significant postwar writers achieved international standing. While this book is a serious foray into the sociology of culture, it is also the repository of lots of good stories." --Mark McGurl, author of The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing

"William Marling draws together a compelling account of the different gatekeepers involved in the success of the four major authors who form his case studies. At the same time, his work stresses the crucial role of translation in the business of World Literature and traces the increasing professionalization of the work of the literary translator." --Jeremy Munday, author of Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications

"Accessibly written and impeccably researched, Gatekeepers successfully establishes the centrality of cultural intermediaries and social networks in determining the canon of contemporary world literature. It is an essential contribution to the ongoing discussion of the cultural and political stakes of literary translation in the era of global English." --Loren Glass, author of Counterculture Colophon: Grove Press, the Evergreen Review, and the Incorporation of the Avant-Garde

"Marling offers a major advance in the theory of literary fields. An aspiring writer attracts supportive networks by displaying an abundance of emotional energy-confidence, enthusiasm-that attracts attention and spreads the emotional glow first in small local networks, then bridging to larger ones. Creativity is social not just because that is how one learns the previous literature and techniques, but as it focuses awareness of what part of the writer's cultural capital is the pathway to success." --Randall Collins, author of Napoleon Never Slept: How Great Leaders Leverage Social Energy

"This excellent study of the catalysts for four writers-Gabriel García Márquez, Charles Bukowski, Paul Auster, and Ha-ruki Murakami-is fascinating to read." --World Literature Today