The work presented here is a qualitative study of socio-cultural approaches to literary texts in a selection of upper secondary English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms in Norway. The article explores opportunities and challenges related to the fostering of competent "intercultural readers" in foreign language (FL) educational contexts by examining how notions of interculturality are implicated in the teaching materials and classroom discourse. The analysis indicates that the examined text interpretation processes rely on a complex interplay between literary texts, tasks and classroom participants in such respect. Two particular strands of the analysis, pertaining to how issues of intertextuality and the emotional dimension of literary reading play a role in the data, are highlighted. The article concludes by discussing the didactic implications of findings.