James Kelman argues against Scottish genre fiction

Citing the bestselling Harry Potter novels of J.K. Rowling and detective pageturners of Ian Rankin, James Kelman has accused popular genre fiction writers of warping the world's perception of Scottish literature. Speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Kelman--who is Scotland's only Booker Prize winner--said that the success of "mediocre" writers has overshadowed the more talented output of literary authors and has turned Scotland into a factory that churns out conventional fiction for mass consumption.

Kelman's remarks have, of course, been met with much derision from both writers of such fiction--who question the ability of so-called "literary writers" to produce enjoyable stories--and readers, who often enjoy gripping yet "easy" tales. Neither is the divide restricted to Scotland fiction; the United States, for instance, has its own distinction between the Dan Browns and Clive Cusslers and the Philip Roths and Thomas Pynchons of the book universe.

Kelman's How Late it Was, How Late, which won the Booker in 1994, met its own share of scorn and criticism, with one judge threatening to resign and critics labeling it "crap" and "literary vandalism." The stream-of-consciousness novel is written in a working class dialect of Glasgow and follows a few days in the life of an uneducated ex-convict.

The Guardian offers an excellent examination of Kelman's remarks:

As a manifestation of the old 'genre v real literature' chestnut, the debate should be just as interesting to those outside of Scotland. Kelman, committed to experimental form and language, sees genre fiction as redundant, compromised by commerciality. Mina, while still calling Kelman a "beautiful writer", regards his stance as a mere "play for status"; a failure of the writer's duty to entertain.

There is another to level to this, however, about the ways in which any country's indigenous literature – especially those of smaller or post-colonial nations – is threatened by the commercial imperative to produce page-turning, airport-friendly thrillers. A third level concerns the collusion of the literary establishment in this. It's certainly the case that the books editors of broadsheet newspapers will bemoan the fact that we're not all reading Tolstoy, while providing acres of coverage to crime writers. Genre fiction doesn't need highbrow attention in order to sell by the bucketload, yet editors must cover it precisely because it is so visible. This crowds out more risk-taking writers, for whom a single review from a perceptive critic can provide a career breakthrough.

It is galling, then, that a country like Scotland, home to an enormous, bristling, experimental tradition which includes James Hogg, Alexander Trocchi, Hugh McDiarmid, Muriel Spark, Edwin Morgan, Tom Leonard, Alasdair Gray, Janice Galloway, Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner, Ali Smith, James Robertson and Kelman himself, is marketed to tourists as the home of Rebus and Potter.

West Texan novelist dies at 83

Elmer Kelton, a Plains novelist and writer of modern westerns, died on August 22 at age 83.

A survivor of the harsh droughts of the 1950s, which killed, defeated, or cast off many ranchers and farmers from West Texas, Kelton became an advocate of self-sufficiency and stoic resilience. The Time it Never Rained, published in 1973 and winner of both the Spur Award and the Western Heritage Award, is perhaps his greatest novel, an account of one rancher's battle against crippling elements.

Kelton won seven Spur Awards from 1957 to 2002. He also won three Western Heritage Awards, and in 1977 won the Owen Wister Award for lifetime contributions to Western literature, an honor he shares with Louis L'Amour, Dee Brown, and John Ford.

Bill Bishop of The Daily Yonder writes about his life and contributions:

Elmer Kelton died last week. He was 83 years old, and in his time he wrote the best books about the treeless land and the work that men and women faced when they moved beyond the 98th meridian.

Elmer Kelton was born at Horse Camp in Andrews County, Texas, to Mr. and Mrs. R. W. “Buck” Kelton. He grew up on the McElroy Ranch in Upton and Crane counties where he learned to do ranch work. Early on, Kelton realized he lacked cowboying talent. "I was the oldest of four boys and by far the worst cowboy," Kelton said. "I rode a horse like all the rest, just not as well, so I took a lot of refuge in reading. Westerns were my heritage. . . . By eight or nine, I decided if I couldn't be a cowboy, I would at least write about it."

...

Self-sufficiency was the recurring political theme in Kelton’s stories. Charlie Flagg warned about taking anything from government. Wes Hendrix, in The Man Who Rode Midnight, stood in the way of a lake planned by the town of Big River. The town saw a future in ski boats and vacation homes. Hendrix thought a life built on cattle and sheep was just fine, and the two, the rancher and the town, settled into a prolonged battle over the meaning of progress.

''When other people can ruin your life, it doesn't matter if it's big government or big business,'' Kelton told me once. ''Above all, I cherish freedom.”

Venezuela's Brain Drain

Newsweek has reported on the effect of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's "twentieth-century socialism" on the educated classes of Venezuela and surrounding Latin American countries. Fleeing cronyism, corruption, cutbacks, censorship, recriminations, and inflation, many of the thinkers and achievers of Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and nearby nations have fled to countries such as the United States, where they believe their talents and skills can find appreciation and funding. More than one million emigrants including scientists, writers, engineers, media producers, and professors have left Venezuela in the decade of Chavez's rule, and many more express an adamant desire to do so in the near future, citing the worldwide recession and lack of visas as the only obstacles.

A recent study by Vanderbilt University in Nashville showed that more than one in three Bolivians under 30 had plans to emigrate, up from 12 percent a decade ago, while 47 percent of 18-year-olds said they planned to leave. Many established professionals have already made up their minds. "I ask myself if I'm not patriotic enough," says Giovanna Rivero, an acclaimed Bolivian novelist who is leaving for a teaching job at the University of Florida and has no plans to come back. But "Bolivia is coming apart. There are people who've known each other all their lives who don't talk to one another anymore."

In Venezuela, Chávez has pushed hard against anyone who refuses to accept his party line. Daniel Benaim was one of Venezuela's top independent television producers, turning out prime-time entertainment and game shows for national channels with Canal Uno, a leading production house. "We had 160 employees and a 24/7 operation," he says. But after the failed coup against Chávez in 2002, the government cracked down on independent media, and programming budgets dried up. In a month, Canal Uno was down to four employees and heading for bankruptcy. Benaim redirected his business to serve the international advertising market and raked in prestigious international awards, including multiple Latin Emmys. But opportunities for non-Chávistas in Venezuela had withered. One by one, he watched the people he trained over the years leave the country. "I used to give angry speeches about the brain drain. Now I have to bite my tongue," says Benaim, who is also moving to the U.S. "We had the best minds in the business, and now there's nothing for them here."

One of Benaim's associates was Gonzalo Bernal Ibarra. He, too, had soared up the career ladder in broadcast television and until recently ran a campus network that reached 100,000 students. Everything changed in late 2007, when Chávez lost a referendum to rewrite the Constitution and began to crack down on his media critics, including Bernal. Strangers in jackets with weighted pockets—dress code for Chávez's military-intelligence police—began to follow him day and night. Then Congress was set to pass a bill obliging schools to teach 21st-century socialism. "I didn't want my kid learning that crap," says Bernal. Even shopping became a trial as spiking inflation and government price controls emptied the supermarkets of basic goods like milk, eggs, and meat. One day in late 2008, Bernal opened a bottle of whisky and held a yard sale. "I got drunk and watched my life get carted away," he says. He now lives in the Washington, D.C., area, with his wife and 6-year-old daughter, and is trying to adapt. "I was living in the most beautiful, wonderful, funny country in the world. Now a third of my friends are gone. In another 10 years, Venezuela is going to be a crippled country."

The "brain drain" bodes poorly for Latin American literature in the region, as writers can hardly find time, resources, or encouragement in such an environment. Tellingly, one of the most recent Bolivian novels to be translated into English, Juan de Recacoechea's American Passport, the best-selling novel of all time in Bolivia, chronicles a man's desperate attempt to leave his country. On the other hand, the exodus of intellectuals may result in a flowering of diasporaic, exile literature, as has been seen with South Asian novelists living in London and Canada and Iranian writers living in the United States.

Literature of the Iranian Diaspora

In 1995, Shahriah Mandanipour and 22 other prominent Iranian writers were nearly killed when an assassination plot hatched by the government failed to send their bus plummeting into a ravine. Mandanipour now lives in the United States, where he is a visiting scholar at Harvard University, and his most recent novel, Censoring an Iranian Love Story, which was written in America but is set in Iran, has recently been translated into English by Sara Khalili. Censoring is Mandanipour's first novel to appear in English translation, and it represents one installment of an emerging trend of Iranian diaspora writers, who catalog their memories of post-revolution Iran from their new places of refuge.

The "renaissance" features first- and second-generation hyphenated Iranians, among them Marjane Satrapi of Persepolis fame; Laleh Khadivi, author of Age of Orphans; and Porochista Khakpour, who wrote the post-9/11 novel Sons and Other Flammable Objects, set amongst Iranian Americans in New York City.

Censoring an Iranian Love Story is a multi-layered tale featuring a writers attempt to compose a straightforward romance while repeatedly being censored by government officials and his own anxiety.

From the article by David Mattin of The National Newspaper of Abu Dhabi:

It’s easy to see why censorship is important to Mandanipour; back in Iran he was banned from publishing entirely between 1992 and 1997:

“Censorship is emotionally crushing for the writer,” he explains, “because it weakens the connection that he has with his readers. Readers become less trusting of the writer, because they know he is being censored.

“Eventually, censorship enters every part of the writer’s life; even the way that he thinks. The writer begins to censor himself.”

That strange dance of speech and silence, Mandanipour says, came to overshadow his writing life in Iran:

“I would write entire short stories on my computer, and then delete them. If my house was raided, those stories might be used as evidence against me.

“With Censoring an Iranian Love Story, I wanted to show how it is impossible for a writer to write a straightforward love story in Iran. That story will always become something else, more complex.”

But Censoring will also provide western readers with an insight into daily life as it is lived in Iran. In particular, we witness the ever looming presence of the Basij “morals police”, and the ingenuity that young Tehranis exercise to circumvent their rules. The Islamic Republic decrees that unmarried men and women should not socialise together: in one passage, Sara and Dara meet in a hospital waiting room, where all those around them are too busy to notice their illegal encounter.

“Just as it is impossible to write a straightforward Iranian love story, it is impossible to live one,” says Mandanipour. “Iranians no longer have the opportunity to have a romantic life, and that can destroy love.”

London and Qatar team up for literary salon

Bloomsbury Publishing and Qatar Publishing have united to form the Bloomsbury Qatar Literary Salon, a series of ongoing events to be held in London and Doha, Qatar, at which Arab writers will be given the opportunity to discuss their work.

The first event, last Thursday, featured British-Egyptian writer Ahdaf Soueif, whose The Map of Love was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 1999.

The second event, to be held in Doha on the first night of Ramadan Iftar, September 9, will feature readings by established and up-and-coming Arabian poets. Future events will follow approximately every two months.

Larry McMurtry may retire from novel writing

Claiming his well of fictional inspiration may be running dry, 73-year-old Texan novelist Larry McMurtry has stated at a recent gathering that his new book--to be released on August 11--will probably be his last novel.

Rhino Ranch will be the thirtieth novel in a corpus that includes Terms of Endearment, The Last Picture Show, and Lonesome Dove, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1986. Centering around an attempt to protect the endangered African black rhinoceros by importing it to the United States, Rhino Ranch will be the fifth installment in a series of novels set his native North Texas which began in 1966 with The Last Picture Show. Most of McMurtry's novels, which are often labeled as modern westerns, are set in Texas.

In addition to being a novelist, McMurty is a screenwriter--he co-won an Academy Award for his screenplay to Brokeback Mountain--and an avid reader and book collector. His collection of over 300,000 books can be perused and purchased at Booked Up in Archer City, Texas.

From the Dallas Morning News:

"It's a finite gift, for sure," he says of novel writing. "I'm about at the end of it. I can write certain things. I don't think I can write fiction any more. I think I've used it up over 30 novels. That's a lot of novels."

McMurtry made the remarks during a recent visit at his home in Archer City. He huddled almost an hour with invited guests from the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, which is sponsored by the author's alma mater, the University of North Texas.

"Most great novels are written by people between 40 and 60, or 35 and 60," he says. "Not too many great novels are written by people over 75. Hardly any. Maybe Tolstoy."

Hilary Mantell favorite to win 2009 Man Booker

Hilary Mantel has taken literary gamblers by storm; of the thirteen contenders on the Man Booker Prize for Fiction longlist released this week, ninety-five percent of gamblers have placed bets on her Wolf Hall to take the big prize in October, leading oddsmakers to call Mantel's win a shoe-in.

Wolf Hall follows Thomas Cromwell's scandalous influence in the sixteenth-century court of Henry VIII. The book has received glowing attention from BBC2 recently, a possible source of its favoritism in the race.

The Derbyshire-born author has published twelve books--including a memoir and a short story collection--since 1985 and has been shortlisted for both the Orange Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize in recent years. Her stiffest competition this year is from South African Nobel laureate JM Coetzee.

In September, the longlist will be reduced to six nominees, and from those six one will win the £50,000 prize at London's Guildshall on October 6.

The German experience in Colombia

Colombian novelist Juan Gabriel Vásquez has written a debut novel detailing the xenophobic accusations against and hardships of German immigrants in Colombia during the second World War, blending the historical story with more recent Colombian history. Titled The Informers and translated into English by Anne McLean, the novel has been given a very positive review by Larry Rohter of The New York Times.

Running like an undercurrent through “The Informers” is the violence that has pervaded Colombian life for decades, leaving survivors with the “fleeting altruistic regret one tends to feel when listening to news of someone else’s death.” A cavalcade of assassinations, kidnappings, bombings and other terrorist attacks perpetrated by guerrillas and drug lords are mentioned in passing, so casually that when one character is asked about the death of a lover, she replies: “There was a fight and guns came out and he got shot, nothing more. The most normal thing in the world.”

Mr. Vásquez also proves adept at capturing the sense of dislocation and vertigo experienced by those forced to separate from their language and culture. Novels about immigrants have become a genre of their own in recent years, usually centered on Latin Americans or Asians trying to make their way in the United States or some other industrialized country. Here, though, the positions are reversed, and while one Nazi supporter sneers at Germans in Colombia who “wanted to assimilate” and have “done so downward,” Mr. Vásquez clearly sympathizes with those struggling to adjust.

Vásquez was born in Bogotá in 1973, and Los informantes was originally published by Alfaguara in 2004, at which time it was hailed by the Colombian magazine Semana as one of the most important novels of the past twenty years. In 2007, Vásquez published a second novel in Castilian, Historia secreta de Costaguana, which has won awards in Colombia and Spain. Having studied at the Sorbonne of France, Vásquez now lives in Barcelona, where he works in journalism, translates the works of Victor Hugo, E.M. Forster and John Hershey, and has written a brief biography of Joseph Conrad, whose style and themes often draw comparisons to his own work.

Serpent's Tail press acquires rights to Italian Booker Prize winner

Serpent's Tail, an independent publishing house based in London, has acquired the worldwide English-language rights to Tiziano Scarpa's Stabat Mater, the winner of 2009's Premio Strega, the leading literary award in Italy.

The epistolary novel is told from the point-of-view of composer Antonio Vivaldi's teenage muse in eighteenth-cenutry Venice.

Hemingway tried to spy for the Soviets

New evidence examined in Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (co-written by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev) suggests that Nobel Prize winning American author Ernest Hemingway was an unsuccessful spy for the Soviet KGB in the 1940's.

According to The Guardian:

Its section on the author's secret life as a "dilettante spy" draws on his KGB file in saying he was recruited in 1941 before making a trip to China, given the cover name "Argo", and "repeatedly expressed his desire and willingness to help us" when he met Soviet agents in Havana and London in the 40s. However, he failed to "give us any political information" and was never "verified in practical work", so contacts with Argo had ceased by the end of the decade. Was he only ever a pseudo-spook, possibly seeing his clandestine dealings as potential literary material, or a genuine but hopelessly ineffective one?