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I agree with M's Fiona Rustom Jagose's answer. Thanks for the invitation.
It very much depends on which literary work you are referring to, in which time and preceding which notable event or events. Also one must factor in how literate a society is in all socio-economic brackets, as well as gender, class and racial groups' freedom to be published and whether literature is considered normal or oven permitted in that society.
As a case in point in the last Man Booker prize winner, Eleanor Catton, was from a country; Aotearoa / New Zealand where the ratio of literature reading surpasses that of any other. She would not have been in charge of her success due to the intense competition of various other high caliber writers who had been equally and freely exposed to a wide range of literature. Had she been born years earlier she may well have been banned from writing any literature at all.
In terms of English literature we see that the ex-British colonies had the English language imposed on them as well as almost rote teaching of several classics of the time. The term of 'the English novel' was reduced to 'the novel' in part due to some embarrassment from England that the colonised outperformed the literature writers from England. Today we can see that India dominates the high literature scene.
So, given that there is no 'the' per sae to literary work in general " Who do you think is in charge of the literary work?" remains a loaded question.
