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On writing other cultures
31 Mar 2011 12:08 pmnb: This is a bit of a braindump as I put thoughts together. I'm not locking this, because I like discussion.
A somewhat recent post from Ekaterina Sedia on being a Russian writer with an American audience, building on one from last year which she wrote about "foreignness" in translation and how people mark foreigners as "other" by having them speak broken English, sticks with me.
From last year's:
She posted that around the same time there was a discussion on how to translate manga into English, wherein someone argued that it's best to keep the honorifics (-san, -kun, -sensei, etc) even if you're translating a work set outside Japan. (I argued that keeping them marked the text clearly as "other," because what kid New York City that isn't of Japanese descent speaking to a Japanese teacher (or in other contexts where addressing someone as -sensei/-san/etc is relevant and appropriate) is going to say "Hello, Smith-sensei"? Or "How's it going, Jeff-kun?" In a manga set in Japan, it's more appropriate to leave it as "Good morning, Tanaka-sensei" or "How's it going, Yuki-kun?" But that's a long-past discussion.)
And back on the subject I originally intended to discuss.
I'm an American, writing in English, ostensibly for an American audience. Yet my principal characters are essentially future space German-Turks (and Germans), except the ones who are future space Iranians. I aim for an insider perspective; I've left a lot of things unremarked-on (like what sucuk and Maultaschen are), and my characters make soccer references on occasion (and they call it football, dammit). I don't want to have the American-looking-in perspective, or have these characters be future space Americans with European names. I also don't want to have the white person writing about "exotic" cultures thing, either.
Though, in some sense, I'm targeting a German audience as well. I'd LOVE to see my work in German. I don't think, sadly, that I'll ever be quite good enough to write novels in German. There are too many nuances I don't have. Though living there again could help, because I'd have to use German most of the time. I'd even make Ben speak German at home. (Maybe not always...)
Of course, some of the assumptions I've made for these future societies could probably be seen as imperialistic colonialist crap. (For starters, at some point, Turkey joined the EU, before that split into western and central/eastern European trade unions, and Germany got its head completely out of its ass regarding citizenship and "integration." And in 500 years, nobody cares if you're gay, and they can marry and serve openly in the military. WHY NOT? Jeez.)
I call this whole universe "space Germans," but my principals are Turks. I think that not having Turks in future Germany shows ignorance of reality, like having LA or NYC entirely white. My little special forces unit is ethnically similar to the 2010 German World Cup squad (though there are no Africans among the named characters. There are 68 of them; maybe they're unnamed and in a different platoon.)
I have no idea if anyone will buy my novel. It's got some Baen-tastic action, but gay Muslims aren't exactly something their main demographic is particularly keen on, or most of the editors, for that matter. *sigh* I just have to have faith that I can make the story compelling enough that I can get an agent, and that s/he can sell the damned thing.
A somewhat recent post from Ekaterina Sedia on being a Russian writer with an American audience, building on one from last year which she wrote about "foreignness" in translation and how people mark foreigners as "other" by having them speak broken English, sticks with me.
But wait, some of you are possibly (probably) thinking, what about American books translated into foreign languages? And yes, there are a lot. In fact, there are a lot of SF/F books translated from English, and most Hollywood movies do release abroad. In fact, Western cultural influences are so ubiquitous as to become familiar – and inescapable. I will posit that people in other cultures don’t really mind translated works because they are used to being exposed to different perspectives, and thus stepping outside of one’s own head is not a chore – it’s a necessity. It is also my hunch that part of this necessity recently has been reinforced by the Western cultural hegemony – refusing to accept American perspective or ignoring it is not really an option in the current extent of Western cultural colonization. [...]
So the issue with books set in foreign cultures, I think, that even though many SF/F readers call for more perspectives and diversity, they don’t really want that. They want someone familiar to show them some exotic stuff without actually challenging the readers’ assumptions or values.
From last year's:
A couple of years back I was on a panel that compared several translations of Zamyatin's We, and both the audience and the panel participants seemed to prefer the translations that sounded the most broken, the most alien. I alone liked the one which translated Zamyatin's text into normal English (with a few quirks of the original preserved), and I still remember the vertiginous sense of trying to explain how alienating that broken English felt while realizing that my own accent, in turn, is rendering my point useless (after the panel, several people saw it fit to compliment me on my accent; just FYI.)
She posted that around the same time there was a discussion on how to translate manga into English, wherein someone argued that it's best to keep the honorifics (-san, -kun, -sensei, etc) even if you're translating a work set outside Japan. (I argued that keeping them marked the text clearly as "other," because what kid New York City that isn't of Japanese descent speaking to a Japanese teacher (or in other contexts where addressing someone as -sensei/-san/etc is relevant and appropriate) is going to say "Hello, Smith-sensei"? Or "How's it going, Jeff-kun?" In a manga set in Japan, it's more appropriate to leave it as "Good morning, Tanaka-sensei" or "How's it going, Yuki-kun?" But that's a long-past discussion.)
And back on the subject I originally intended to discuss.
I'm an American, writing in English, ostensibly for an American audience. Yet my principal characters are essentially future space German-Turks (and Germans), except the ones who are future space Iranians. I aim for an insider perspective; I've left a lot of things unremarked-on (like what sucuk and Maultaschen are), and my characters make soccer references on occasion (and they call it football, dammit). I don't want to have the American-looking-in perspective, or have these characters be future space Americans with European names. I also don't want to have the white person writing about "exotic" cultures thing, either.
Though, in some sense, I'm targeting a German audience as well. I'd LOVE to see my work in German. I don't think, sadly, that I'll ever be quite good enough to write novels in German. There are too many nuances I don't have. Though living there again could help, because I'd have to use German most of the time. I'd even make Ben speak German at home. (Maybe not always...)
Of course, some of the assumptions I've made for these future societies could probably be seen as imperialistic colonialist crap. (For starters, at some point, Turkey joined the EU, before that split into western and central/eastern European trade unions, and Germany got its head completely out of its ass regarding citizenship and "integration." And in 500 years, nobody cares if you're gay, and they can marry and serve openly in the military. WHY NOT? Jeez.)
I call this whole universe "space Germans," but my principals are Turks. I think that not having Turks in future Germany shows ignorance of reality, like having LA or NYC entirely white. My little special forces unit is ethnically similar to the 2010 German World Cup squad (though there are no Africans among the named characters. There are 68 of them; maybe they're unnamed and in a different platoon.)
I have no idea if anyone will buy my novel. It's got some Baen-tastic action, but gay Muslims aren't exactly something their main demographic is particularly keen on, or most of the editors, for that matter. *sigh* I just have to have faith that I can make the story compelling enough that I can get an agent, and that s/he can sell the damned thing.
