Throughout history, writers have been shaped by and have responded to social events, some great and some small. The degree to which contemporary writers are also a product of their environments has not changed.
Contemporary world literature continues to reflect the degree to which writers are influenced by political and social movements of the day, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall (and all it symbolized) in 1989 or the protests against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
World systems can often change on a grand scale. For example, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union that characterized the post-Second World War period gave way to a new openness (or glasnost) championed by Russian premier Mikhail Gorbachev starting in the mid-1980s.
In addition to the mid-1980s and 1990s marking a time of political sea change for old Cold War antagonists, this period also saw the beginning of the end of apartheid in South Africa (i.e., strict racial segregation and white minority rule).
On the grandest scale, the world seemed to be moving away from its bloodiest (the First and Second World Wars) and its most repressive (Communist rule under Stalin and Mao, for example) times. The contemporary age was not perfect, of course, but the possibility for a generally peaceful and prosperous world seemed real once again.
However, events on September 11, 2001, fundamentally changed that optimism: hijackers claiming to act in the name of Islam took control of commercial airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center (the "twin towers") in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. (A fourth plane was forced to a crash landing in Pennsylvania after passengers wrested control from the hijackers.)
The wars, the political maneuvering, the new culture of fear, and all of the accompanying rhetorics changed the world, and, of course, impacted art and artists as well.
In other ways, the kind of idealistic life of ease, convenience, and prosperity that the post-1945 world of science and technology had promised was becoming more and more obviously wishful thinking. New industrial methods, globalization, and liberal market policies—instead of raising the standard of living for all—were often having the opposite effect: further widening the gap between the developed and the developing world.
And if the telegraph and other new modes of communication had a profound impact at the turn of the twentieth century, nothing could compare to the impact that global information technology would have by the turn of the twenty-first century.
The later twentieth and twenty-first centuries continue to see increasing struggles for equality from groups who have otherwise lived as marginalized citizens. Gay rights movements continue to seek equality for diverse sexualities and feminist movements continue to fight for gender equity.
As with the post-Second World War period, contemporary world literature is marked by diversity and hybridity. Magical realism and postmodernity may seem whimsical but are playing for deadly stakes as they attempt to make sense of genocide, colonization, and political repression.
The twenty-first century began with reminders of the interconnectedness of a global society linked by industrial capitalism and communications technology but divided by religion and politics. While war, terrorism, and poverty are events that divide us, the greatest world literature suggests what unites us.