This work discusses the experience of reading literature in silence and solitude, focusing its effects on the reader. The starting point is the enlargement of cognition as presented in Varela's enactive approach and the concept of inventive cognition as formulated by Kastrup. Then, it proposes the reading as an experience of becoming aware. The work is also based on Chartier's ideas about reading practices and uses the theory of Larrosa regarding the transformative aspect of reading as well. The idea that reading literature provides a meeting with otherness is developed. It may constitute an opening for the unknown and an opportunity of inventing oneself.
Reading; Literature; Cognition; Invention