The Center of the World: Regional Writing and the Puzzles of Place-TimeRegional Writing and the Puzzles of Place Time is a study of literary regionalism. It focuses on the fiction of the United States and considers the place of the genre in world literature. Regionalism is usually understood to be a literature bound to the local, but this study explores how regional writing shapes ways of imagining not only the neighborhood or the province, but also the nation, and ultimately the world. Its key premise is that thinking