This paper is situated within debates surrounding modes of “close” and “distant reading” [Moretti 2000] as they are played out in both the fields of world literature and digital literary studies. It proposes an alternative digital humanities approach to the study of world literature, advocating new methods of close comparative reading rather than the mode of “distant reading” endorsed by Franco Moretti and Alan Liu [Liu 2012]. Specifically, the research method proposed here is focused on a close reading of the novel The Secret Scripture (2008) by Irish author Sebastian Barry, with comparative reference to Pat Barker’s well-known war novel Regeneration (1997). Through the development and implementation of a digital humanities research method which facilitates new forms of digital literary analysis, we demonstrate that close reading and digital humanities can too be “practicing partners” in a way that serves to advance work in both the fields of world literature and digital literary studies.