Warning: unpopular opinion ahead
I just decided to DNF Eka Kurniawan’s Man Tiger, a literary novel that I read for the SEA Reading Challenge but stopped because I’m not a fan of literary fiction and I’m currently too tired to have to work at what normally brings me joy. Normally, I’d just continue googling for a book that fits my reading challenge criteria, but today, I want to talk about what diverse books means to me and why I think we’ve still got a ways to go.
What Diverse Books Mean to Me & What I Think the Problem Is
First, let me start with why I started this SEA Reading Challenge. So while I was in Japan, I started reading a few more Japanese works such as visual novels and mysteries. I really enjoyed them, but my reading speed in Japanese is pretty slow and it felt like Japanese study to read them, so all the English books I read were for comfort. But, I realised that it was pretty hard to find Singaporean or other South East Asian fiction ebooks or even physical books in English. Which is why I wanted to intentionally seek out and read books from authors around the region. It didn’t help that I made the challenge more difficult by restricting myself not only to books set in South East Asia, but also to books by South East Asian authors who were born, raised, and preferably still living in South East Asia.
My reasons for doing so are related to my definition of diversity. Diverse books should include either of these three:
- Diversity of background
- Diversity of thought
- Diversity of story
So while I think the #ownvoices campaign is fantastic, I was a bit disappointed by the fact that most of the authors there are by people of colour who are living in the West. I understand the reasons why – it’s because the target readers of the campaign are people in the West – but as someone who was born and raised in South East Asia, many of their experiences sound the same to me while not resonating. To me, many of the diverse books that aren’t fantasy are pretty much the same, and they resonate with me the same way as the ‘non-diverse’ books.
And that, to me, is the weakness of the current diverse books movement. While it does a good job highlighting the different stories within the West, it does not go far enough in celebrating the diverse voices that I’m sure exists. It almost feels as though that anything outside a Western-centric worldview (even one with space made for POC-heritage backgrounds) doesn’t exist – as seen by the fact that Blood Heir came under heavy criticism by people who did not understand that slavery does not only have a Western heritage. As a non-American, this incident seems as though the very people calling for diverse books don’t actually want diversity – they want something that has been Westernised to their standards.
What I Think The Way Forward Should Be
To me, the solution to this is simple but unlikely to happen: books from all around the world need to be made more readily available. Two of the problems that I faced in trying to find books from the region around me were:
- The books that were published were often literary novels
- Local publishers don’t publish ebooks
The fact that I read mainly genre novels makes point 1 more of a problem than it actually is, but to me, true diversity should occur in all genres, not just literary fiction. Not to mention that a lot of the novels I see translated and published tend to be heavy political novels, which end up having the same tone to me. I want to read stories set in various countries with different characters and with different storylines. We need more diversity of stories in what is chosen for translation and international publication.
For example, a recent book I enjoyed was The Bone Ritual, which is a mystery/thriller set in Indonesia and featuring a range of characters from different backgrounds. When I was younger, I enjoyed stories from The Bookworm Club and Mr Midnight, which were stories with characters that resembled my friends and I. Why can’t I find the same type of stories now?
(I admit that one of the reasons I read is to learn, but I also read to have fun)
My second problem in finding books is that even when books are translated and published in other countries, they’re often published only in paperback/hardcover. This is a problem for local fiction as well – and when I’ve asked local publishers why they don’t release ebooks, they tell me that they don’t want to cannibalise their physical book sales. To me, that’s short-sighted thinking: if the books are only available in physical form, what are the chances they’re available in bookstores in America, Europe, the Middle East, etc? But if they were available as ebooks on platforms like Amazon and Kobo, then it would be so much easier for readers from other countries to discover our local publications and vice versa. The reason why Western-centric novels are so dominant around the world today is because the American publishing system not only gets into bookstores around the world, but also because they’re most readily available. Overdrive is huge in Singapore thanks to the NLB, but it’s so hard to find ebooks by South East Asian or even local authors thanks to policies like these.
After five years in Japan, I know that there are lots of great books being written and published in other languages. I’ve read quite a few great books that I’ve not seen translated into English. The problem is that no one speaks or reads enough languages to be able to seek out diverse books in their own languages. What we need, then, are for authors, publishers, and readers to start demanding and making different types of stories accessible in different types of languages (not just English) all around the world.
I can only speak from a U.S.-centric perspective, but I think publishing more international authors in the U.S. would be beneficial as well. As you say, most of the books being published today have a very U.S.-centric lens and it’s not clear to me that most of them are doing anything different because they all sound like the same YA fantasy to me over and over again (I read mostly fantasy). Sometimes–and this is another unpopular opinion–it seems to me that like the new cultures we’re supposed to be seeing are only superficial at best–because they are still being written by U.S. authors who often presenting a Westernized story with a few scatterings of words in a different language or something like that. Meanwhile, the plot, the characters and their philosophies, it’s all the same. The characters are thinking and acting like contemporary American teens.
I’ve seen the argument changing as we’ve seen more of this. Originally, we were supposed to be getting new perspectives and new types of stories. Now I see people arguing that everyone of every background should be able to have cliched or even terrible books written for them. (This argument seems sort of insulting to authors?) But I do think if we actually want different perspectives, we should be publishing international authors. Unfortunately, I think they’re seen as risky and expensive. And it’s probably precisely because they are different that they are difficult to market. Readers of U.S. YA really tend to buy books that follow the same patterns and tropes.
That’s a good point about how the marketing is difficult because they are different.
Yes, I agree that the philosophies of the stories are very often the same. It is ironic that in the name of ‘diversity’, we force authors into pigeonholes, I.e. if you’re from X background, you must touch on Y theme.
It seems to me that smaller presses like Candlewick tend to take more risks on international authors. I’m not sure why. Maybe they really believe in these titles and want to share them, even at the risk of losing a bit of money. However. It does also seem that, with the right marketing, you could make an international title a bestseller–if you wanted. Maybe?
Yeah, there’s that problem, too. You don’t want to be told you’re only allowed to write about certain topics because of your background or identity. You end up stereotyping people that way. “Well, you’re X, so clearly you come from Y background and can only write about that.”
This is an interesting insight. And I agree, not distributing digitally to save print sales is super short-sighted. Especially since those print books aren’t going to make it overseas, if they aren’t bestsellers.
This situation you described reminded me of something you see here in the U.S. sometimes. If you’re visiting a town or city with some tourism to it, and maybe you check into a local store of some kind, you can usually find paperback books by local authors. People you’ve never heard of, stories you’ve never heard of, but the stories are usually region specific. Or if they’re non-fiction, it might be local history or local folklore. I often snatch up local folklore books when I see them in other places I’m unfamiliar with.
Sorry Krystal. My above comment wasn’t supposed to be inline with your thread.
And my phone autocorrected, even after I corrected it, and added the L to your name. 🙄
Exactly. To me, the long tail means that they should be distributing as widely as possible (especially since it doesn’t cost much extra to be available online if you’ve already done editing and cover) to reach as many people as possible.
I’d totally get local folklore if I can find it! Singapore isn’t big enough to have smaller regions, but luckily there’s the internet (managed to pick up some Yorkshire folklore recently) – still, it would be amazing to have more available online.
No worries, Nathan! Also, autocorrect is the worst. Mine refuses to recognize “if” as a word for some reason!
Hates the word If, eh? Lame.
I am surprised that there aren’t more books translated into English. I know that English is the third most common language in the world, but I would have thought that we would translate a lot of books into English! I hope you are able to find some good ones that you enjoy 🙂
From what I see, most of the books translated are literary fiction – I don’t see as much genre books being translated unless they’re huge hits (like The Three Body Problem).
Ahhhh I love this post!!!
I totally agree with how Western-centric published books tend to be. I love diversity, and think it’s super important, but I don’t just want Western diversity. Stories from other countries are so interesting, and the history from other countries is amazing. Some of my favourite books are books that take place in countries other than my own from a perspective that’s not my own.
And I totally agree about the literary vs genre fiction issue, as well. I enjoy literary fiction, but I also enjoy genre fiction. And genre fiction is still *so* heavily Westernized. Even own voices genre fiction tend to still be from a Western lens, which (IMO) just limits and restricts our perspectives. I would love more genre fiction (in English, so I can read it) that’s not from a Western perspective.
I would definitely recommend 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami if you want translated genre fiction. It’s a kind of literary sci-fi/fantasy, if that makes sense, and was originally written in Japanese but translated to English. It’s L O N G (like 1157 pages) and really weird, but it’s amazing.
I also loved the Dragon Kepper by Carole Wilkinson, which is middle grade/younger YA fantasy that takes place in Ancient China. It’s not own voices, but the author did a ton of research and from what I remember, it’s fairly respectful of the culture (and it was published before own voices was really a thing).
Hi! So sorry but your comment went to spam for some reason and I just saw it! Yes, I really appreciate being able to see the world from other points of view through reading. George R.R. Martin wrote that “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.” and I completely agree with him.
I’ve heard a lot about 1Q84! I’m planning a trip to Japan at the end of the year, so I may look for a copy there (I desperately need to practice my Japanese so I’ll probably look for the original version).
Dragon Keeper sounds very interesting! I don’t see much Chinese-influenced fantasy, so I’ll have to check it out (the library seems to have the book so it’s just a matter of hunting it down).