Most literary novelists feel relatively confident they can sell copies of their newly published book to their parents, probably to their siblings, maybe (if they haven’t sparred too often over loud music or lawnmowers or leaf blowers) to their neighbors. Their local bookstore, if they still have one, is likely to agree to carry the book too and may even put a copy in the shop window or on a central table.
With a review or two in a local paper, these same writers may also experience the disconcerting ecstasy of seeing their book in the palms of a stranger sitting across from them on a bus or subway. With a few reviews in a national publication or by powerful bloggers and Twitter pundits, he or she may receive SMS’d pics from friends who have seen it in bookstores in other U.S. towns and cities.
But how about beyond the fruited plain? Whose work gets read outside of America?
In 2008, Horace Engdahl, then permanent secretary of the Nobel Prize selection committee, infamously called American authors “too insular,” and “too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture.” The last American to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature was Toni Morrison in 1993; American writers, Engdahl said, “don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature.” The implication was no one cares about contemporary American fiction but Americans.
During the ten years I lived in France, I witnessed firsthand the regional limitations of American literary fiction. But not all American novels go unnoticed. On any bestseller list in France, you’ll find The Help and Fifty Shades of Grey and the latest book by Dan Brown. You’ll also find American literary fiction. You just won’t find all or necessarily the same books as on similar lists in America. [Editor’s note: As the commenters have pointed out Fifty Shades author E.L. James is indeed British and not American. To clarify, her books, like The Help and those by Dan Brown have perched atop American bestseller lists.]
Distribution decisions play an obvious role: if a reader in Lyon can’t get a book, the reader in Lyon won’t be reading it. I was ready to kiss the ground the day my publisher decided to create a paperback international edition for my debut novel, An Unexpected Guest, in addition to the hardback U.S. edition. I’ve subsequently seen An Unexpected Guest on bookstore shelves not only in France, but also in England, Switzerland, and Finland. I receive messages through my website from readers as distant as India and Malaysia. Foreign rights sales also award far-flung readers (and in my case have given me a couple of new first names: “Anna” on the Russian edition; “En” in Serbia).
Set post-9/11 amongst expatriates in Paris, An Unexpected Guest seems a likely candidate for finding a global audience. But every country has its own literary predilections. With a relative absence of cronyism, the playing field is leveled; a new balance of criteria goes into building an audience. It seems to me that French readers frequently go for novels that manage to be both intensely American and yet possess one of the characteristics often attributed to works in their own contemporary oeuvre: dark, searching, philosophical, autobiographical, self-reflective, and/or poetic (without being overwritten). The last French novel I read, Le canapé rouge by Michèle Lesbre, clocked in at 138 pages, and French readers are not dismissive of short American novels either: Julie Otsuka’s 144-page-long Buddha in the Attic won this past year’s prestigious Prix Femina Étranger. But they are not averse to length either (see, for example, Joyce Carol Oates below). They also like authors who like France and have an understanding of French culture. They enjoy being taken to places – U.S. college campuses, inner Brooklyn, suburbia – they might normally never visit.
But just as there are many sorts of French authors, each American author admired in France brings an own set of attractions. Following are eight examples.
The New Yorker
During the ten years I lived in France, I could have easily believed Paul Auster was America’s preeminent living author. French prizes that Auster has won include the Prix France Culture de Littérature Etrangère, the Prix Medicis étranger, and Grand Vermeil de la Ville de Paris. In a 2010 interview, Auster, who lived in Paris from 1971-74, explained his cult-like status in France, thus: “In France, they feel I am on their side. It helps that I speak French. I am not the American enemy.” But can that account for the ardent following, which extends across the Continent, for his very New York-centric fiction? On his official Facebook page, a multi-lingual collage of comments, a Slovakian woman has this to say: “I generally don’t like American writers, but this one is really special, readable yet in-depth and philosophical.”
The Expat
Douglas Kennedy’s renown overseas was chronicled in a 2007 TIME article entitled “The Most Famous American Writer You’ve Never Heard Of.” It’s hard to pigeonhole Kennedy’s ten thought-provoking-yet-page-turner novels, but their immense popularity in France — indeed, in all of Europe — is borne out by the droves of adoring fans who line up for his signature and a second’s worth of his Irish-American charm. (I’m not making that up. I’ve seen them.) A Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Kennedy keeps a home in Paris and speaks fluent French, but he was born and raised in New York City. His first three novels were published in the US, but when the last didn’t meet outsized expectations, U.S. publishers scattered. Alas for them – his fourth novel, The Pursuit of Happiness, sold more than 350,000 copies in the UK and more than 500,000 copies in France in translation alone.
The Soul Mate
Written more than a decade ago and more than 750 pages long, Blonde continues to fly off the shelf in French bookstores. The Falls won the 2005 Prix Femina for Foreign Literature. French director Laurence Cantet just brought out a film adaptation of Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang. I asked Joyce Carol Oates about her avid French following. “For me,” she says, “the very sound of French spoken is musical, beautiful, subtly cadenced.” Her involvement with French language began in high school; as an adult she has taught and published French literature. “This is my background for writing, and my relationship with the French reading public may be related to it.” She also praises her translators. But the French devour Oates’s dazzling, precise prose equally in English; at France’s largest English-language bookstore, WH Smith/Paris, along the Rue de Rivoli, Oates is one of the nine American authors of literary novels most in demand with customers. Perhaps her novels take French readers into an America that simultaneously surprises and confirms their expectations?
The Autobiographer
Philip Roth first won acclaim in France with Goodbye, Columbus in 1960; his fame was cemented with Portnoy’s Complaint in 1969. He’s since won the Prix de Meilleur livre étranger for American Pastoral and the Prix Médicis étranger for The Human Stain. The French often speak of a quasi-autobiographical quality in his works, citing it as a passageway to truths about certain periods of time and segments of society in America. It was during an interview about his most recent and apparently last novel, Nemesis, with the French publication, InRocks, that Roth chose to announce his intention to retire from writing fiction. The news spread like wildfire throughout France before it could even be picked up by a U.S. news agency.
The Poet
Go to “books” on the French Amazon site, type in “Laura,” and the first prompt to come up will be “Laura Kasischke.” Kasischke’s most recent novel, The Raising, became a bestseller in France within a matter of days; it was shortlisted for the 2011 Prix Femina Étranger, and nominated for the JDD France Inter Prix and Telerama-France Culture. Be Mine and In a Perfect World have sold prodigiously. In the U.S., Kasischke, who teaches at U. Michigan, has probably won more acclaim for her poetry. She graciously points to “having a fantastic editor and press… [and] fantastic translators” when I ask her about the recognition for her novels in France. But Kasischke was the other female author on the list of nine top-selling American authors given to me by WH Smith/Paris — like Oates, she is being read both in translation and in English. “She is the painter of the American Midwest, an America where behind the walls of nice manners live individuals overwhelmed with sadness and boredom,” influential French journalist Francois Busnel stated on French television last year.
The Cowboy
Whether set on the border areas of the U.S. and Mexico, in the South, or in post-apocalyptic landscape, Cormac McCarthy’s novels wax dark and darkly reflective. Oliver Cohen, Cormac McCarthy’s French editor, has explained their popularity in France thus: “McCarthy reveals a collective anguish, to which he figured out how to give a shape.” French novelist Emilie de Turckheim offered me for further insight: “[McCarthy] manages…. to use, with virtuosic erudition, all the lexical richness of his language… at same time as abusing and decomposing English syntax to create a language brutal, impressionistic, extraordinarily poetic, capable of mimicking the immense violence of everyday life.” The French routinely compare him to Faulkner, a deceased American author they venerate. The French translation of No Country for Old Men sold about 100,000 copies. La Route, aka The Road, has to date sold over 600,000, with no sign of abating.
The Philosopher-Poets
According to Sylvia Whitman, proprietor of the English-language bookstore near Notre Dame Cathedral, Shakespeare & Company, Russell Banks and Jim Harrison are among the five contemporary American authors most frequently requested by their French patrons. (The other three are Auster, Kennedy, and David Foster Wallace.) Banks and Harrison use literary realism to take their readers into richly tinted but not always rosy pockets of modern America. Harrison, whose numerous fiction works include Legends of the Fall and just-released The River Swimmer, lives in Montana; in France, he’s been described as “the bard of America’s wide-open spaces… of the eternal conflict between nature and society.” Like McCarthy, Harrison is considered a literary descendant of Faulkner. Russell Banks, whose many novels include The Sweet Hereafter and most recently The Lost Memory of Skin, lives in upstate New York; InRocks has called him “the best portraitist of marginal society in America.” In 2011, he was awarded him the rank of Officier des Arts et Lettres by the French Minister of Culture. Russell and Harrison both also write poetry — a sort of win-win, all things considered.
Ultimately, finding readership in France or elsewhere is like any love affair: alchemy, composed of varied, delicate elements. “Reading, an open door to the enchanted world,” wrote French Nobel laureate Francois Mauriac.
Image via christine zenino/Flickr
Hate to be pedantic ( well, actually, I don't) but it's Houellebecq. It's because of that e that it's pronounced well…, otherwise it would be hool…
After all that trouble, I'm felled by a lousy spelling error… Thanks for pointing it out. I've fixed it.
How about Dai Sijie? First name's pretty obvious, but I can't figure out the last.
And Chinua Achebe?
Just a quick correction on Ngugi wa Thiong'o, in case anyone is trying to use this page as a resource.
nGOOgi wa te ONG go. There's actually an audio version available here:
http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/worldhistory/unit_glossary_25.html
Is it Edward AL-bee or ALL-bee?
hi. i'm a bit embarrassed to ask this coz i'm not as intellectual as all the other bloggers posting comments on your page but my friend and i have been debating on how to properly pronounce the name Johann if given for a guy's name. one says it with a yo-han and the other says it with a jo-han. which is the correct one?
I wouldn't bet on Anonymous ever coming back to see this reply after two months, but Johann in German is pronounced "yo-han."
Andre Dubus always tripped me up when I first became a fan. Duh-byoose.
One of my thesis advisors at UCLA once told me as a child Donald Barthelme spent the night at his house. He couldn't remember the circumstances or tell me how his father had known DB, but he did remember that his name was definitely pronounced "BAR-tuhl-mee" with a hard T. This particular professor is not hard of memory, well under the age of 50, and exercises regularly.
I remember embarrassing myself once when I pronounced Albert Camus (Kam-oo) as Albert Kam-ah-s, infront of a group of philosophy buffs. Oh how my face turned red when I found out…
Does anyone know how to pronounce Paule Marshall's name? She was born Valenza Pauline Burke. I'm not sure if Paule is short for Pauline and should be Paul-lay, simply Paul. Any ideas?
The BBC Pronunciation Blog has been moved to this page – http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/how_to_say/
It's very helpful! I know how to pronounce Tsvangirai now. :D
Did the late Americanized intellectual historian George Mosse pronounce his name MOSS or the Germanic MOSS-UH? (And the first name?)
I went to a slightly snobby undergrad university and although most people gave Walter Benjamin's name an English first name pronunciation but did the vaguely Germanic Ben-yuh-meen for the last. I am returning to grad school and wondering what the current thing is?
Tom [email protected] (let me know at that address also if you don't mind — I tend to forget where I post things)
Anyone know how to pronounce Des Esseintes, the name of the main character in 'Against Nature' or 'Against the Grain' by Huysmans?
I don't know the Huysmans work but a standard French pronunciation would be close to dez-es-sent or des-es-sant. There are exceptions but usually you do pronounce the S before a vowel (unlike the way we say Des Moines, Iowa.)
Now, how do you pronounce Huysman?
By the way, I finally asked (by e-mail) the chairman of the history department where Mosse last worked before his death and he said Mosse used an Americanized "Mossy".amkunstwerk
I may be repeating others, but here are my contributions:
Huysmans is apparently "H'WEES'maan." At least I somehow feel comfortable saying it that way.
Cioran is TCHAW-rahn (according to the Times obit), but I will never feel comfortable pronouncing his name.
Walser is Valser, and I pronounce his book "Jakob von Gunten" as "YAH-cub von GOO-tin" — please correct me in the comments if I'm wrong because this is my favorite novel!
I picked up "Ben-ya-MEAN" as an underground but still use the "W" in "Walter."
I always pronounce Bataille "Buh-TIE" and Blanchot "BLAN-show," hopefully correctly.
I hear Musil is M'EEOO-zil.
I've heard "ZAY-bald" for W.G.Sebald (from people who know German). Presumably I don't have to pronounce the "W" and "G" in anything other than my annoying Philly ACK-sent.
Pynchon puts the accent on the last syllable, see especially his voicework for The Simpsons.
pronunciation for Louis de Bernières please?
~ Anita Revel
(pronounced Re-VELL to rhyme with bell) ;-)))
If we don’t mind diving into genre, China Mieville might be a good addition to the list? Wikipedia has a pronunciation in IPA, but I’m not sure what its source was.
How do you pronounce Albert Szent-Gyoergyi?
Does anyone know how to pronounce, R. G. Vliet, author of Scorpio Rising?
I am so glad someone else wants to know how to pronounce China Mieville’s name. That was my first thought when I saw the headline. I even speak french, but those sounds don’t want to come out right for me!
How do you pronounce the name of Chinese philosopher Tehyi Hsieh? Thankyou
Borges has no long-A sound. It’s Bor’ hess – with a short e as in let. The long vowels of English have no counterparts in Spanish except long e which corresponds roughly to the Spanish i as in lindo – leen’ doh. So, Quesadilla is not Kay sah dee yah, it’s keh sah dee’ yah – impress your latino friends.
My dad knew Don Barthelme, and he pronounces it with a “th” sound.
Anonymous:
It is ok to pronounce Albert Camus’ last name as “Kah-mahs”, or “Ca-moose”.
Anyone who says otherwise is ignorant and I will slap them down in any knowledge or IQ test in existence.
They are mediocre pieces of rubbish who try to bolster themselves culturally by learning the original pronounciation of a few words or names, but have no more knowledge than that.
People who correct you on Camus’ last name will generally be cultural backwater. Try it out. Be a prick and mispronounce his name in front of an a-hole on purpose and if he corrects you, say something like: “Ah, you must be someone of learning and refinement, someone who must also know about art history, literature, the humanities and the sciences. Let’s talk about them now since I want to learn and you seem to imply by such a refined correction that you are knowledgeable. I cannot wait to be enlightened”.
Or, say something similar but less of a mouthful.
People who correct Camus’ pronounciation also eat with chopsticks but don’t know of the conventions of the Japanese woodcuts that influenced Van Gogh.
Just ignorant rubbish. Sad, really.
Sorry, but it really irritates me to hear of mediocre ignorant people hanging onto one correct pronounciation as if it makes them cultured. Useless.
how to say
Vladimir Nabokov
Contrary to the version given above (which as how I was pronouncing it before hand) the actual pronunciation of Huysmans is ‘OUS-mans’ with a completely silent H.
This is according to a friend of mine who is fluent in French.
ok, I am bilingual in French and English, and in English, Huysmans is pronounced something like “weess-MAWSS.” That’s the closest I can get.
Just ran across your query about how to pronounce R. G. Vliet’s name. Since I’m his widow let me reassure you that his mother pronounced it 5 different ways and that hardly anyone gets it right. The name is Dutch, was Van Vliet, so that Van Fleet was the correct pronunciation. Dropping the Van made it difficult to believe, but the voiced F (v) is the accepted Americanized way, hence the one-syllable, long e, Vleet. Most people try to insert a vowel between the V and L or use a French pronunciation or variants thereof–absolutely wrong. Vleet. is your best bet, but you probably know that by now.
Hi Ann,
Russel was my great uncle and everyone in my family tells me how much we would have gotten along / how I remind them of him. I am the son of John Vliet, who is the son of my estranged grandfather, Ron. If by some chance you get this I would love to email you sometime about his career as a writer / know some other things about him. His writing has always resonated with me in a very odd, spiritual like way, as if him and I have some strange, esoteric sort of characteristics in common somehow. I am also intrigued by your explanation of how to pronounce Vliet- as I have been raised to pronounce it “Vuh-leet,” whereas you are saying the most accurate pronunciation is “Fleet”? Very interested in anything you have to say about any of this as I have long been curious of my Dutch origins, the otherside of my family lineage being Finnish. Cheers!
Josh
Barthleme has a hard t. no question. Rilke is not a long e…it’s more of an “a” (“uh”)