Recently, distance and proximity with their related semantic concepts (e.g. expanse, strangeness, distance, nostalgia, exclusion and inclusion, dissolution of boundaries, otherness, homesickness, longing, border, restriction versus connectedness, familiarity, neighbourhood, kinship, sympathy, empathy) have gained increasing importance and topicality - and this not least because of the crisis triggered by the Corona pandemic worldwide. In the present volume, relevant contributions by Italian and German literary and linguistic scholars have been compiled with the aim of providing a new compendium on the literary and linguistic expressions of empathy and distance, on inclusion and exclusion procedures in literature and language, on fidelity or alienation in literature, translation and language didactics, as well as on the expression of distance and proximity in linguistic and literary forms.