In my view it comes down to subjective value judgements. I believe literature is a `broad church` which ought to be able to deal with any subject, and that ultimately it is individual readers, or readers en masse, who decide on the value of any particular work and on whether or not it deserves a place in the annals of literary history.
Writers aim to show us `the world`, but no single writer can do this, and `literature` should encompass numerous different kinds of writer because each is trying to show us something which cannot be shown as a whole. Each, whether a Tolstoy or a Raymond Chandler, can only give us his own small fragment of understanding. Ultimately it is those works which endure that should be considered `literature`, those which have succeeded in holding firm a fragment of life, to be seen, to be read, to be understood.
Perhaps we should let a writer have the last word on summing up the writers` art:
The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed, so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist`s way of scribbling `Kilroy was here` on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.
In conclusion, literary writing does embody certain distinguishing characteristics. It is a self-conscious, imaginative mode of writing which uses words not just to convey information, but as an art form. Ultimately it is a response to life.