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Politics and literature are deeply entangled within society, setting boundaries, informing, and influencing perspectives.
Former President Barack Obama’s interview with The New York Times discussing literature touches on many points that are important when considering literature and globalization. While often recognized as a story or a statement about society’s views at a point in history, literature also has a role in forming these views. Obama talks about the influence writing, and reading had in developing his opinions growing up and understanding different perspectives while in the role of Acting President, as well as maintaining his own sense of perspective.
One of the benefits of reading non-fiction literature is developing a broader perspective on the views of the “other”. By experiencing stories and narratives that are told from many different vantage points, the individual may expand their understanding of the experiences of people with very different stories. In a world with increasing global pressures, quickly changing technology, and mass migration of people and their cultures, developing a sensitivity for the “other” and finding an active place in each other's stories is essential to any sense of unification or multiculturalism.
Authors like Jhumpa Lahiri, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chinua Achebe give us insights into experiences of western world culture from other perspectives, allowing for deeper understanding and a clearer view of individual experiences outside our personal narratives. These short stories do not have the same sharp satirical note as much of the important globalization literature that is written from within Western culture, often sharing a less critical and more vulnerable experience. These personal and vulnerable stories have an important role in educating multicultural attitudes and opinions of each other, allowing for both similarities and the differences of authour and reader. This interplay between perspectives, boundaries, and narratives is the reason that literature has an important part to play in the humanity of globalization.

I completely agree with the concept of Literature playing an important role in globalization, especially with regards to humanity. It is thanks to literature that we can understand the point of view of others. I believe the reason literature does this so well is due to the ability to delve deeper into the meaning and reasoning behind people and locations than say a picture. Yet I have to say that maintaining one's own perspective would be next to impossible due to literature.

I'm not saying that the core of one's views would change but rather how the core of their beliefs and perspective would shift and change to fit the new information that they had learned. With this new information they are better able to not only understand their own perspective, but the perspective of others. I believe Barack Obama's opinions have not changed but to state that one's perspective on life and on others doesn't change, even with the information and the perspectives that literature can give us, is perhaps slightly inaccurate.

The empathy of connecting with someone's experiences would alter the way we view that situation. Whether on an individual scale or across a culture's is the same; by connecting with something like that the perspective we have with the world around us alters however slightly. As such while I agree with the concept of literature being an important part of globalization and humanity as a whole I don't agree with literature stopping at expanding one's views and perspectives. Whenever we read the works of author's like the one you mention, author's who's stories carry great emotion and connections to ongoing problems, our views always shift and adapt to fit the information we have absorbed.
Whether this is done for good or ill is ultimately up to the individual.