Does Americanized literature, English, and culture represent the mass of world liter

[osho]

Few of us might have heard of the literature fair in Jaypur in India and fewer might have ideas about the fair and none might have participated and myself included in nonparticipation. But it had a voice and a say and one of the luminaries of American literature India born Jjumpa Lahiri, the booker prize winner and some other noble laureates too had showed up in the festival. One of the topics discussed there and had been one of the major themes that had got entry into some of the internationally illustrious journals is the growing Americanization of literature and the rest of literature for want of good translations and of being awarded some of the prestigious prizes cannot be literary mainstream and as such even they are of great quality and substance. Literature is universal, though, but most global literary creations go unheard of and American literature is shadowing all of them. This is not underrate American literature but the question is the issue about overrating some literature and underrating others just because of the lack of publicity and good translations.

[Scheherazade]

I think it is more about accessibility than underrating, as your good self identified as a cause as well.

[JBI]

The standard now is a sort of Latin American approach to literature. That has sort of been the biggest current I have seen in the past 30 years - even here in China, where Mo Yan is very much a product of an American interpretation of South American literature.

[JCamilo]

But even here, the Boom generation is fading. Bolano, the last big hit, was already a kind of rebel child. Anyways, do you mean the magic realism approach?

[JBI]

But even here, the Boom generation is fading. Bolano, the last big hit, was already a kind of rebel child. Anyways, do you mean the magic realism approach?

The sort of novel as country, family as country sort of approach that we see in Marquez, or in any number of dictator novels.

[JCamilo]

You consider that as Latin American? Maybe I am missing something, how this is different from Marioka Sisters?

[JBI]

You consider that as Latin American? Maybe I am missing something, how this is different from Marioka Sisters?

The national allegory as novel is very much Latin American, in that people around the world learn it from Latin America, despite Marquez learning it from Faulkner. Likewise the sort of poetic world of Neruda, or the magical realism have had a far wider reach recently than something like American post-modernism. Americans too write novels as "the state of the union" but most attempts of late have been rather flat compared to the Latin American boom, which eventually lead to the root seeking 寻根 movement of Chinese literature, which still hasn't ended. Or we see it much in something like Salman Rushdie, or any other number of imitators. As the world sort of moves toward isolation and the rebirth of extreme-nationalism (particularly in Asia, but also in the Middle East) we see a sort of movement toward renationalizing literature. The Latin American model seems particularly adaptable, and has been used consistently for such purposes, far more than the American sort of nihilistic post-modernism that dominates the irony-intense prose of the post-1960s generations. Latin-American irony is far more inviting as an idiom, since it doesn't try to "destabilize" as much as it does criticize.

Perhaps the new super-man genre will take off even more so, or maybe we will move toward a post-nationalist idiom, but somehow I doubt it. Seems we are more and more nationalist by the day. Though even outside of nationalism, we still see a Latin-American model. For instance, Umberto Eco, Jose Saramago, etc. are quite obviously writing with a Latin-American Boom tradition behind them, despite their own personal advancements, they are not coming out of the US tradition. Chinese attempts at American post-modernism were more or less squashed in the 80s in favor of magic realism, Latin American style fiction and popular sentimentalism which does not get read in the academies. Canada too has had a heavy influence of the sort of magical-realism model, or even the political model, though Canadian fiction has had its own wrestling with American post-modernity that led to a strange sort of hybrid of post-nationalist irony that only an immigrant country without much in nationalist sentiment could produce.

[JCamilo]

Moby Dick was the first one that crossed my mind as a nation allegory, but since you mentioned the family and Moby Dick is more a coorporation, I went to Mariokas sisters. 3 sisters, each representing a different aspect of Japan (one more traditional, another nihilist, another with western influences). They have some influence from Russians and Dostoievisky did something familiar (maybe Tolstoy too) with Brothers K. Obviously, all those are examples of realism, by what I heard Mo Yan is not. (Murakami also dwells in "magic realism", I guess to add in your list).

The thing is the boom is dead as borges, cortazar and neruda for while. The new generation is a bit critical of the old ones, specially their social views. They are "dead white men" and without the comercial appeal of magic realism label, i think they will fade, but the language of contrasts that they developed - urbarn, peripheric, building a new tradition - is indeed "charming". Maybe that can keep the appeal to a kind of writer/public that wont be happy with the pulp fiction hollywood wannabe from USA. Magic realism (the real one, with Carpentier, Marquez) have always been the socio-cultural diversity of Latim America explored, the inclusion of the natives or former slave culture and point of view in the european narratives here. Some of their precussors did somethig similar (Kafka, the jew/german mix, Kipling with indian/british) so i take this was some historical trait, one manifestation here with those faces, but that happened before.

Eco, Saramago may only show the power of Borges and Kafka (even if I think Eco is shooting to many directions). I wonder if the chinese market allows the invasion of those teenager dark fantasy trend. It seems to be overdone fantasy will get more space (which i suppose the super-man is about, you are giving a name to HP and Percy Jackson) than the subtle irony of magic realism

[miyako73]

Do you speak Spanish, JC? Please help me. Do you think the Spanish lines in my poem "Allende's Zorro" are correct? Thank you.

[JBI]

Moby Dick was the first one that crossed my mind as a nation allegory, but since you mentioned the family and Moby Dick is more a coorporation, I went to Mariokas sisters. 3 sisters, each representing a different aspect of Japan (one more traditional, another nihilist, another with western influences). They have some influence from Russians and Dostoievisky did something familiar (maybe Tolstoy too) with Brothers K. Obviously, all those are examples of realism, by what I heard Mo Yan is not. (Murakami also dwells in "magic realism", I guess to add in your list).

The thing is the boom is dead as borges, cortazar and neruda for while. The new generation is a bit critical of the old ones, specially their social views. They are "dead white men" and without the comercial appeal of magic realism label, i think they will fade, but the language of contrasts that they developed - urbarn, peripheric, building a new tradition - is indeed "charming". Maybe that can keep the appeal to a kind of writer/public that wont be happy with the pulp fiction hollywood wannabe from USA. Magic realism (the real one, with Carpentier, Marquez) have always been the socio-cultural diversity of Latim America explored, the inclusion of the natives or former slave culture and point of view in the european narratives here. Some of their precussors did somethig similar (Kafka, the jew/german mix, Kipling with indian/british) so i take this was some historical trait, one manifestation here with those faces, but that happened before.

Eco, Saramago may only show the power of Borges and Kafka (even if I think Eco is shooting to many directions). I wonder if the chinese market allows the invasion of those teenager dark fantasy trend. It seems to be overdone fantasy will get more space (which i suppose the super-man is about, you are giving a name to HP and Percy Jackson) than the subtle irony of magic realism

Still the idiom remains. The reason I cited Latin America is because though the traditions have other places and comparable developments around the world, most of the international players, I feel, seem to be engaging these themes from Latin American literature, particularly Magical realism and the other facets of the Latin American boom from the Latin American boom itself, rather than through an American imitator. Marquez has very much become the novelist of the second half of the 20th century, despite only representing a specific instance of the Latin American literary development. Like root seeking literature, and new magical realism literature, they are all trying to recapture this sort of mythological national identity that they are studying from the political developments of Latin America. Even a Chinese author like Su Tong engages historical fiction in a sort of mode developed from the Latin American boom political novel (which uses historical fiction as a sort of allegorical modern criticism in many instances). Though we have counter examples, Su Tong, Yu Hua, Mo Yan, and any other number of Chinese authors learned these skills from sojourns in the US (many under the tutelage of Nie Hualing in the University of Iowa) and were self-consciously emulating a style learned from South America as a "Reconstructionist" sort of "post national-traumatic" political literature. That they only grasped a fraction of the general climate and atmosphere, or that they could have learned as much from Russian as well as Japanese authors (though in a different perspective) is irrelevant.

That being said, such circulations of texts are highly crucial to this development. In terms of translations, Chinese mainstream translations are a summary of 19th century French, English, and Russian literature, as well as modernist American fiction, and soviet novels (many of which I have never heard of in English). These translations for the most part were done in the Republican era. For contemporary books the general trend is either best sellers or nobel prize winners, with none of the current trends actually being translated. So someone like Alice Munro was more or less unknown until she won the nobel prize, and then became a Chinese super-star by the benefit of sharing her name with Mo Yan. As Americans with the exception of Toni Morrison have not really won the nobel since the 70s (and even then Saul Bellow early on, and Singer in Yiddish), we see this sort of problem with critical idiom. Post-modernity as a sort of movement remains outside of the Chinese cultural sphere, and politically such advancements are discouraged. As China is the biggest reading public in the world potentially (that is, if people read, though T.V. as a genre is also influenced by cultural idiom) then we see the problem here.

Latin American authors by contrast have already been absorbed into the cultural idiom, the same way they have been absorbed into Canadian literature, and I here much of Indian literature as well, since their idiom is very much the most current - meaninglessness and the decline of the American empire cannot hold sway over the currents of "welcome back to the top of the world, or back to the gentleman's developed club" that are going on in most of the world as the old cultural hegemons crumble. So China, which for the past 35 years has been emulating the Japanese development model is now trying to say that it is "culturally" better. Generally, the move is toward a resurgence of "our culture" outlooks in the area, which is facilitated by the Latin American model.

[JCamilo]

I guess they share much of the "roots" and a lot of cultural momment with the attempts to solve the dialogue with europe(usa) model, the contrast with the tradition and the attempt of re-founding a new tradition with a stronger world voice and since the novel became the form for national narratives, there is this convergence to the last sucessful model. Of course this kind is off, as Latin America had no previous strong writen culture, while places like India and China have milenar culture, there is plenty of reasons for claims of legitimace (weither harder or wrong), while in Latin America was a resistence to imperialism basically.

The feeling for most part is that Marquez or Borges had no heir except the cheap spiritualism like those by Paulo Coelho or the sentimental drama like Isabel Allende. Not that is unusual, usually those momments have a peak and a decadency, specially if other cultures absorb it. Does the chinese new literature is also doing a religious rebuild or the years of communism was enough to make the intelectuals avoid it?

[JBI]

I guess they share much of the "roots" and a lot of cultural momment with the attempts to solve the dialogue with europe(usa) model, the contrast with the tradition and the attempt of re-founding a new tradition with a stronger world voice and since the novel became the form for national narratives, there is this convergence to the last sucessful model. Of course this kind is off, as Latin America had no previous strong writen culture, while places like India and China have milenar culture, there is plenty of reasons for claims of legitimace (weither harder or wrong), while in Latin America was a resistence to imperialism basically.

The feeling for most part is that Marquez or Borges had no heir except the cheap spiritualism like those by Paulo Coelho or the sentimental drama like Isabel Allende. Not that is unusual, usually those momments have a peak and a decadency, specially if other cultures absorb it. Does the chinese new literature is also doing a religious rebuild or the years of communism was enough to make the intelectuals avoid it?

Depends, the cultural revolution generation of China, and the generation right after it had this notion of not having a culture, and not having a place, so out of this, a bunch of people more or less denied a culture outside of the communist radical sphere needed a sort of "who we are", "why are we special" model. The cultural revolution is interesting in that it remolded almost every form of social and cultural interaction within the Chinese cultural sphere. So, for instance, old people have different sets of manners than young people - the differences are also marked by comparing people from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Mainland - culturally after the chaos of the late Maoist tradition, there was a massive redefinition, and out of that the model of choice first was radical experimentalism, then when that got boring a sort of "recreation" model borrowed from Latin America.

[JCamilo]

Yeah, I guess nobody knows better how to be a "third world country" than us. No better model to follow :D

[JBI]

Yeah, I guess nobody knows better how to be a "third world country" than us. No better model to follow :D
It's not that - the American tradition does not have as pronounced a history of political upheaval in the 20th century. So if you want to compare the Dictator novel to the Mao novel, you have more ground than lets say the meaninglessness of the contradictory Pynchon landscape. If you want to talk about the experience of growing up under intense hardship, it's hard to find a good model in American fiction, whereas civil war areas or poverty in some places in Latin America work well.

[JCamilo]

Yeah, JBI, just joking :D

[mona amon]

Yeah, I guess nobody knows better how to be a "third world country" than us. No better model to follow :D

Oh, we could give you a run for your money! :D

Although I wasn't crazy about Rushdie's Magic Realism novel Midnight's Children, I feel it did manage to capture in some way the spirit of the nation in a way none of the long catalogues of exotic horrors (like A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry) were able to. Magic Realism with its multiple realities, bewildering detail, excesses, vitality and general over-the-top whackiness was the best way to capture the chaotic reality of a large, overpopulated, once colonized 'third world' country with enormous cultural diversity.

[JBI]

Oh, we could give you a run for your money! :D

Although I wasn't crazy about Rushdie's Magic Realism novel Midnight's Children, I feel it did manage to capture in some way the spirit of the nation in a way none of the long catalogues of exotic horrors (like A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry) were able to. Magic Realism with its multiple realities, bewildering detail, excesses, vitality and general over-the-top whackiness was the best way to capture the chaotic reality of a large, overpopulated, once colonized 'third world' country with enormous cultural diversity.

Rushdie has gone English/American, and Mistry became Canadian. What of directions in Indian fiction written by Indians for an Indian public (in English or in translation)?

[islandclimber]

It's interesting to see the prevalence of that bitter cynicism, fierce irony, and instability of meaning/meaninglessness particular to Postmodernism in the literature of Eastern Europe especially since about 1980, through the end of Marxism as the regions dominant force, and into the kind of ambiguous ideological landscape that has emerged since. Poland, Hungary, the former Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine... all these nations offer quite a stunning pseudo-postmodern ouevre, though thinking about this, I might suggest a kind of post-postmodernism, or hyper modernism, as much of the humour and that sense of complete meaninglessness found in American and British postmodernism has disappeared in Eastern European and the cynicism and despair become more prevalent, the irony more caustic, the schizophrenic nature of the world more apparent. Perhaps this is due to the constant societal and cultural upheaval of that region for much of recorded history. The only American author that is often lumped into the loose Postmodern collective (reserved for just about anything that's quite different from the normative in the literary world) that reflects this Eastern European variation would be William H. Gass. And perhaps his shaking off the term of postmodern and labelling himself as "Decayed Modern" works for Eastern European Literature of the past 30 years also.

[mona amon]

Rushdie has gone English/American, and Mistry became Canadian. What of directions in Indian fiction written by Indians for an Indian public (in English or in translation)?

Most of the Indian writers writing in English have an eye on the International market, and I can't think of any contemporary translated work that has made any impact. The thing is India has 22 official languages and countless other languages and dialects, so it becomes difficult to look for directions and trends. There may be literary masterpieces there somewhere, appreciated by the people who read that language, but the rest of the country will not know of their existence, leave alone the rest of the world.

Now I'm ashamed to say I don't know much about the publishing scene even in my mother tongue, Tamil. My education was such that I've been reading only English books since childhood. I'm familiar with the classical Tamil canon, or at least I have some idea of what it is, though I've read very little in Tamil, but I can hardly name a single contemporary work. Last year I was reading an account of a regional book fair, and they said Tamil translations of English classics and bestsellers were "flying off the shelves", but the opposite wasn't happening - there was not much translation of Tamil works into English because the publishers were doubtful about the demand for these.