Who Do You Write For?

You know how it is, googling around looking for something else (i.e. after Dreamer Idiot mentioned Vyvyanne Loh, I had to go look for information on her) I stumbled across a page which stopped me in my tracks ...

Yew Leong Lee, Singaporean Fiction Writer and Media Artist, posted up this quotation from Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello on his blog :

‘The English novel,’ she says, ‘is written in the first place by English people for English people. That is what makes it the English novel. The Russian novel is written by Russians for Russians. But the African novel is not written by Africans for Africans. African novelists may write about Africa, about African experiences, but they seem to me to be glancing over their shoulder all the time they write, at the foreigners who will read them. Whether they like it or not, they have accepted the role of interpreter, interpreting Africa to their readers. Yet how can you explore a world in all its depth if at the same time you are having to explain it to outsiders? It is like a scientist trying to give full, creative attention to his investigations while at the same time explaining what he is doing to a class of ignorant students. It is too much for one person, it can’t be done, not at the deepest level. That, it seems to me, is the root of your problem. Having to perform your Africanness at the same time as you write.’

The question of course: if you live in this part of the world and write fiction, who do you write for? If you write for an overseas audience, you are constantly having to explain the local context. It's not a problem that British and American writers, for example, have to even consider (unless, of course, they write about subcultures), because through the media we've lived in their headspace for much of our lives. (Hey, sorry about the 'our' creeping in there when I'm a double agent with a foot in both camps.) It seems unfair, but it's a reality ...

Yew Leong talks about his own writing dilemma:

If I were to write about Singapore, the subject matter would make me interpreter, because I can’t fathom writing for Singaporeans and Singaporeans only. (One need only remember how Hwee Hwee Tan kept explicating in Foreign Bodies. Even Vyvyanne Loh had some explaining to do.) So I drop the Singaporeanness of my locale, and write about rootless, peregrinating characters (something anyway I know). For which I get obliquely critiqued by friends who think the only novels worth two cents are those that transcend personal experience to depict national character.

It's a question that every local writer looking for overseas recognition needs to resolve, and Shirley Lim was also saying something along these lines the other day at Silverfish ...