tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1246220242273461143.post5073492567251500615..comments2024-03-15T12:14:33.129+00:00Comments on Biblibio: The European problem | 100 Best WITMeytal Radzinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15805413335735169073noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1246220242273461143.post-89997365994351437142020-07-24T10:28:05.542+01:002020-07-24T10:28:05.542+01:00I definitely agree with you that it is important t...I definitely agree with you that it is important to advocate for books by non-European/US authors to receive more attention. I've very much been trying to do that in my own reading and it has been very enriching. I look forward to reading your blog post on the publication market!Valeriehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07105755632277999176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1246220242273461143.post-27157008416130907792020-07-20T12:26:04.865+01:002020-07-20T12:26:04.865+01:00Valerie - absolutely! There are a lot of factors h...Valerie - absolutely! There are a lot of factors here and it's totally valid to look at how skewed the publication market is. This is something I'll be talking about more in depth next month. And I think that the question of why many African writers don't actually write in their native languages is DEFINITELY one that needs to be asked (since I've encountered so many cases like this). <br /><br />But since many ARE writing in non-English languages like French, Portuguese, Arabic, etc., I think it's fair game to critique the fact that these works get far less attention than their white-French counterparts (and far less attention than their black-English counterparts as well!)... Does that make sense?Meytal Radzinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15805413335735169073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1246220242273461143.post-67071615716980488892020-07-20T11:51:38.818+01:002020-07-20T11:51:38.818+01:00Interesting blog post. Following on from Jean'...Interesting blog post. Following on from Jean's comment, I do think the figures are somewhat skewed by the fact that most African authors (I can't speak to the situation of Asian authors as I am less familiar with that publishing landscape) publish in either English or French (and sometimes also Arabic) not in their mother tongue/local language. This is largely driven by the fact that the publishing industry remains relatively small on the continent (with, of course, important country variations and digital publishing offering interesting new opportunities), which leads authors to have to pitch their publications to European or US publishers. Writing in French or English for them is thus as much about reaching a broad audience and economic imperatives, as about a lack of alternative options. The issue is thus broader than who gets translated; it is about who has access to publishers and how this impacts how authors write, in which language, who gets published (there has been growing criticism of US/European publishers favouring diasporic writers over Africa-based writers and of being mostly interested in 'immigrant stories' rather than the wide scope of stories that African authors write about) and who gets to read the books (prices of books by African authors are often prohibitively expensive in their own countries). I have also noticed that even local African publishers often publish books by local authors in English and only on occasion translate these into the local language(s)! So there are a lot of things that are really skewed here.Valeriehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07105755632277999176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1246220242273461143.post-51097287821168419002020-03-07T16:58:25.246+00:002020-03-07T16:58:25.246+00:00Oh, sure. But that's kind of my point with the...Oh, sure. But that's kind of my point with the Women in Translation project in the first place, isn't it? That we're exposed to so many more English-language writers (and definitely women writers) than women who write in other languages. If all of our favorite African or Indian women writers are English-language writers (despite the fact that millions upon millions of African and Indian women write in other languages!), then we are missing out. I want us to have all those slices of pie, both originally in English and NOT. I'm greedy! :)Meytal Radzinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15805413335735169073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1246220242273461143.post-48968084921754594322020-03-07T01:59:30.844+00:002020-03-07T01:59:30.844+00:00When I went to look at my favorite books to nomina...When I went to look at my favorite books to nominate titles, I realized that a bunch of my favorite African and South Asian writers wrote in...English. That took several names off my list. I think if you took votes for 'favorite African women writers' -- or the same for South Asia -- you'd get some results that would be interesting to compare.Jeanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14247515387599954817noreply@blogger.com