READING LITERATURE FROM AROUND THE WORLD TO HELP IMPROVE YOUR OWN WRITING

INFLUENCES COME FROM EVERYWHERE. AND EVERYWHERE DOESN'T JUST MEAN IN YOUR OWN LANGUAGE

One of the things I’ve found over the years, including and especially during my graduate studies (and I’m sure you’ve come to realize it too), is that reading (and reading as a writer) literature from around the world is a fantastic way to broaden your horizons as an author. Now, yes, we can read masterpieces from Shakespeare and Milton, Salman Rushdie and James Joyce, Claire Keegan, William Trevor and Bram Stoker, Jonathon Swift and Sally Rooney, Jhumpa Lahiri and on and on. It’s endless, the talent that’s come out of the English speaking world. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the resources out there (and the enjoyment as a reader) you’ll benefit from by reading books in other languages (if you’re able to) and, if that’s not an option, by reading translations of works publishers have deemed worthy of publishing.

For some years now, say around the third millennium BC, works of literature have been translated into other languages. Obviously the Bible was an early translation, but works like the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (second millennium BC), the Septuagint a Greek translation of the Bible (third millennium BC), the Bible translation by Saint Jerome (4^th millennium BC), scientific and philosophical works from Arabic and Latin into Spanish in 1085 AD, and then, with the invention of the printing press in the 15^th century, when translations and publications in English and, really, in general, blew up around the world. In terms of novels being translated and printed, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were a transitional time, with French and German novels leading the way. I had the privilege of viewing Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623), at the British Museum in London. It was produced on a 17th-century common wooden handpress, and I geeked out on it for hours. This is the magic of not only the printing press but on the ability for us, in the 21^st century, to view, with our own eyes, the literature of centuries (and Millenia) from the past.

While pursuing my bachelor's degree in English Literature, and then my master’s degrees in Literature in English and Creative Writing, I was exposed to (and sought out) literary works in Spanish (I’m Hispanic and able to read Spanish) as well as translations from the French, German, Italian, and other countries. The thing about being exposed to these works is that, like all cultures, we tend to not only eat different foods but to think differently, to have experienced different cultural and political events that influence our writing, and learn to appreciate and understand that while we may be a global society, we aren’t necessarily taught (or learn) the same subject matter in quite the same way. And that applies to how we, authors and other artists, are influenced to produce the work we produce. Which takes us to the different influences writers across the globe are exposed to, and how they choose to express those differences and the concerns that drive them to document, in fiction, the things they document.

WRITERS BENEFIT FROM THE INFLUENCE OF OTHER WRITERS. BE OPEN TO GETTING OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT ZONE IN ORDER TO IMPROVE YOUR WRITING

While the following could better be summed up in a literary/critical paper, for the purposes of this blog, I’ll be summarizing, as best as I can and as succinct as I can, the highlights of literature from around the world. Please note that there will be generalities throughout, that not every issue or important area of said literature will be addressed, and that the point here is simply to give a brief overview of what type of literature is out there and what some of the topics/subject matter from certain countries and fiction writers of those countries have been put to paper. There are novels about war. Novels about love. Novels about crime. Novels about every genre we’ve decided on as a planet to label, all of it based on countless variables. I’ll try to give the Cliff’s Notes version (are Cliff Notes still a thing?). Feel free to comment in the comments section if you have anything to add or expound upon if you believe I’ve not addressed something critical to my Cully Cliff Notes.

READING LITERATURE FROM AROUND THE WORLD TO HELP IMPROVE YOUR OWN WRITING

Spanish Literature

First off, Spanish literature, in this post, deals not only with literature from the Iberian Peninsula (which includes Portugal (Portuguese), Andorra (where Catalan is spoken), Gibraltar (where English and Spanish are spoken), and a little piece of France, but from the Spanish speaking countries in South America as well. It would not be a holistic view of the fiction/novels out there if I only included writers like Miguel Cervantes, Pio Baroja, Javier Marías, or Carmen Martín Gaite, and other novelists from Spain. Writers from South America such as the great Gabriel José García Márquez (a Colombian), Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina), Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru), Pablo Neruda (Chile), Adela Zamudio (Bolivia), and others, while speaking different dialects, still speak Spanish.  

Hemingway app highlights lengthy, complex sentences and errors; if you see a yellow sentence, shorten or split it.

Like many authors from around the world, Spanish language writers have historically been focused on the same/similar themes as their brethren from other countries. Political upheaval is always a prominent theme, as Spain, being as old as it is, has experienced changes not only in contemporary government but in the royal transitions from the days of the Catholic kings and queens, as well as the conquests and battles between the North African Berbers and Arabs against the Visigothic Kingdom. Especially in Andalusia (Southern Spain), mosques were built atop churches which were then built as mosques all over again. Think about not just the political subject matter available to the Spanish, but the historical settings available to writers interested in the dramatic possibilities of such turbulent times.

Philosophical issues have been touched by countless writers, though French novelists have, for me anyway, stood out as particularly focused on this topic, followed by Russian and German writers of fiction. Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment is one of my favorite novels. Camus and Sartre are mammoths of French philosophical fiction. And of course there’s Goethe from Germany and, one of my favorite writers, Milan Kundera, whose The Unbearable Lightness of Being blew my mind when I’d read him while I was living in Prague. Naturally, having only a slight understanding of the Czech language, I read the novel in English. I can only imagine how much better it would have been to read the book in the native Czech. Other themes include critiques on social issues, inequality, love, death, free will, gender roles, historical narratives, and writings communicated via magical realism, such as the incredible works by García Márquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude), Isabel Allende (The House of Spirits), Laura Esquivel (Like Water for Chocolate), and other writers who dabble in magical elements, the surreal, and the fantastical while remaining in realistic settings.

For Americans, Spanish is probably the most prominent language we have when it comes to translated literature, given there are sixty-eight million, or twenty percent of the population, of Hispanic origin in the U.S. If you took even a year or two of Spanish in high school or college, I recommend picking up a novel written in Spanish and giving it a go. It won’t hurt to have a dictionary next to you (or on your computer/mobile phone) so you can more easily understand what’s going on as you read.

But keep in mind there’s a caveat to reading not only Spanish translations but translations of any work from any language. One of the most annoying (to me) things that irk me when reading translations is the unfortunate use of literal meanings versus the author’s intended meaning. As a native speaker of Spanish (mostly Castilian as I lived in Spain for a while even though I’m Puerto Rican), nothing disappoints me more than translations that miss the subtleties, the idioms, the culture, and the context of what the original versions were trying to communicate. It’s for this reason that it’s important to understand languages other than your native tongue. In terms of improving the breadth of what you can write about with authority, I highly encourage you to explore the world of Spanish literature and, if you’re adventurous enough, try your hand at learning the language itself. I guarantee you this: you won’t regret it.

French Literature

Here’s a fun fact about French literature: France has the highest number of Nobel Prize laureates for literature at sixteen (the good old USA is in second place with thirteen Nobel laureates in literature).

France’s Nobel Prize laureates:

2022: Annie Ernaux

2014: Patrick Modiano

2008: J. M. G. Le Clézio

2000: Gao Xingjian (French and Chinese)

1985: Claude Simon

1964: Jean-Paul Sartre (declined the prize)

1960: Saint-John Perse

1957: Albert Camus

1952: François Mauriac

1947: André Gide

1937: Roger Martin du Gard

1927: Henri Bergson

1921: Anatole France

1915: Romain Rolland

1904: Frédéric Mistral (wrote in Occitan)

1901: Sully Prudhomme

Like Spanish language writers, the French have always been attracted to the themes of gender and identity, social injustice and class issues, philosophy, memory, war, and, of course, politics and the dynamics of the populace versus those in power. Victor Hugo greatly influenced Romanticism; Honoré de Balzac and Gustave Flaubert (whose house I visited in Croisset, near the city of Rouen, where I lived for a month), were champions of Realism, while Emile Zola was all about Naturalism. Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre, who was a philosopher, a playwright, and a novelist, played key roles in establishing existentialism. American writers like James Baldwin, Paul Auster, John Steinbeck, and even Chuck Palahniuk, were all influenced by Sartre and his existentialist ideas, and we know how great books like The Grapes of Wrath, Fight Club, Auster’s New York Trilogy and Sunset Park, Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain, and every other book produced by these writers are.

Language, according to the Google, “is the fundamental tool for human communication, expression, and thought, shaping how we perceive the world, build relationships, and define our cultural identities. It is crucial for transmitting knowledge across generations, facilitating social cooperation, enhancing cognitive abilities, and fostering empathy.” And good writing does all of these things while leveraging a good plot, good dialogue, scenes, settings, robust, fully fleshed-out characters who “want” something and go for it and either come to a win or don’t.

For Americans, Spanish is probably the most prominent language we have when it comes to translated literature, given there are sixty-eight million, or twenty percent of the population, of Hispanic origin in the U.S.

But the most important few words in the above, for me anyway, are the ones that deal with “shaping how we perceive the world.” For me, that’s what fiction (and writing fiction) is about: how we perceive, or gain knowledge of, the world around us, including our families, our friends, colleagues, and every other individual on planet earth. Fiction is how we make sense of the world. And if we’re not reading literature produced by the world, then we’re missing out on a tremendous amount of knowledge. Knowledge that can only help your fiction be better than it already is.

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JAPANESE LITERATURE

So, we’re going from Spanish and French to Japanese? Yes, dear reader, we are! And not because there aren’t thousands upon thousands of books and writers in Europe and south America, but because I’d like to touch on writing and writers from the East, in this case Japan. Yes, there are fantastic writers from Turkey (Orhan Pamuk), Lebanon (Khalil Gibran, whose The Prophet I read in one sitting right in the middle of a raucous party back when I worked as a cook in Yellowstone National Park), Afghanistan (Khaled Hosseini), Iran (Marjane Satrapi), and Egypt (Naguib Mahfouz), who I won’t touch upon. You can look those writers up later (I recommend you buy the translations of their novels, pop a bottle of wine or seep some tea, and read until your eyes can’t see, which is one of my favorite things to do.

Back to Japan. While there are plenty of wonderful Japanese writers, writers like The Tale of Genji author Murasaki Shikibu, controversial author Yukio Mishima (the pen name for Kimitake Hiraoka), who attempted a coup d'état that ended in his seppuku (we Americans refer to seppuku as hara-kiri, or suicide by disembowelment), Kenzaburo Oe, who won the 1994 Nobel Prize, and others. The king of Japanese literature, however, at least in contemporary times, is Haruki Murakami. What’s cool about Murakami is that he’s a great example of a writer influenced by other writers from other lands, in his case, the West.

Murakami, who considers himself a “black sheep in the Japanese literary world,” is the author of the novels Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore, 1Q84, South of the Border, West of the Sun, and many other works of fiction.

Murakami writes minimalist prose that is surreal, and often deals with themes of memory, existential longing, alienation, and lonely men living mundane lives but who face metaphysical, magical-realist, and fantastic or strange, surreal journeys. Early in his career Murakami wrote by translating his thoughts from English to Japanese. This process morphs into something slightly different in his later works, but the American influence is there in his pop culture references—American lit behemoths such as Raymond Chandler, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut and others, jazz music and music from the Beatles, the Talking Heads, Simon & Garfunkel, and others. In my writing, I try to incorporate what I learn from writers writing in other countries, in other languages, with different mindsets. For me, this type of writing is critical to opening up my horizons as a writer, and an absolutely necessary step in the progression of the writing I hope to one day write. English and Spanish may be my native languages, but we eat Asian fusion dishes for a reason: they’re delicious! And the same holds true for fiction written with influences outside of the writers’ (and readers’) comfort zones.

I will, in future posts, expand upon the writers I admire (and some who others admire) in a similar fashion to what I’ve done in this post. Everyone has limited time, and my goal here is to give you a taste of what’s out there and how it can help you as a writer, and rather quickly. There’s nothing, in my opinion, as important as reading literature from around the world to help improve your own writing, which is why my bookshelves are stacked with books, both fiction and nonfiction, from writers that span the globe. It’s great to be versed or even an expert in American literature. How can it not be? But the U.S. isn’t the only country that produces great literature, and you should be open to exploring the strange and wonderful world out there. It’ll open your eyes to views and subject matter you may have never even known existed.

PS: In case you’re interested, here’s the complete list of American Nobel Laureates in Literature:

Sinclair Lewis (1930)

Eugene O'Neill (1936)

Pearl S. Buck (1938)

T.S. Eliot (1948)

William Faulkner (1949)

Ernest Hemingway (1954)

John Steinbeck (1962)

Saul Bellow (1976)

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978 - Polish-born, US citizen in 1943)

Czesław Miłosz (1980 - Lithuanian-born, later US citizen)

Joseph Brodsky (1987 - Russian-born, later US citizen)

Toni Morrison (1993)

Bob Dylan (2016)

Louise Glück (2020)

Cully Perlman is author of a novel, THE LOSSES. He can be reached at Cully@novelmasterclass.com

THE LOSSES TELLS THE STORY OF A FAMILY IN TURMOIL AFTER A CHRISTMAS FAMILY REUNION

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