Writing Foreign Cultures in Fiction and a Writer's Identity

Today’s post is an accumulation of responses to posts I’ve read as well as thoughts that have circulated in my mind in recent weeks. As such, don’t expect a structured post that goes on to make a point, but rather semi-connected musings as I reflect on being a writer from a different culture and a different language, writing in English and in hopes to appeal to the American or British [preferably both] industries.

Not a long while ago, I’ve been advised to play my strength and write about my country, since nobody writes about Bulgaria. It’s a small country, therefore unique and overlooked. I can see the merit in that proposal [yes, I’ve brainstormed ideas and toy with a modern Bulgarian UF], but this also prompted me to look back to everything that I’ve written so far and hope to write.

Because, you see, such a suggestion directly touches upon my identity as a writer. What you write about defines who you are. At least this my take on it. I’m decidedly non-Bulgarian or otherwise I would have written in Bulgarian rather than in English like a friend I have, whose work is inspiring and profound. Or at least trying to introduce the Bulgarian culture with its admirable qualities and faults. Not impossible, but a lot more harder, because Bulgaria is hard to convey in a different language, as is any other country for that matter.

No, I find it a lot more easier to throw scathing references to Jersey Shore, then sprinkle some Buffy the Vampire Slayer, surfer & 70’s slang along with other typically American cultural staples.

It’s easier because the American cultural dominates the world. The US has established one of the largest cultural hegemonies in the world. When communism finally fell in my country and Bulgaria could finally enter the world, culturally America influenced us a lot. I grew up with Cartoon Network, Looney Tunes, Disney and what not. Same with music, same with cinema and television. Bulgaria adopted reality TV with successful Bulgarian versions of Dancing with the Stars, Music Idol, Survivor, Music Academy and Big Brother. Even our food comes from American franchises such as the eternal McDonalds, Subway, Burger King, KFC and we even have Starbucks now.

All these things coexist with our loud taverns, greasy snack-selling kiosks, chalga music and Bulgarian superstitions and small personal rituals [all of which I love; well minus the chalga]. I’m not here to say ‘Grr, those pesky Americans are to blame,’ cause they nobody is at fault that one culture is popular all around the world. But it does explain why I find it easier to use the cultural references I grew up with and write for a considerably larger audience, because a lot of people look up America and are interested what comes from there as music, movies and literature.

Perhaps that makes me a traitor as my friends have joked about it. Perhaps my choice to look to the West, instead of looking in my cultural heritage, robs of me of my very own identity. I do fear that I’m doing the impossible, writing about a country that I have never stepped in and therefore can’t understand, which is a lot more different than being an immigrant in the USA or any other country for that matter. Do I even have an identity from a cultural standpoint? It is one of the toughest questions that I stand before.

There has been talk about multiculturalism in speculative fiction, about introducing different [overlooked] countries, about representing people of color and even challenging the ideal for beauty as fellow writer Theresa Bazelli did in her post ‘Searching for Beauty’:

“… that was when I started noticing things I'd taken for granted. I realized that most of the women that the men pined after in the stories were either buxom red heads, cool blonds, or girl next door brunettes. In the odd occasion that there was a raven haired girl involved, her skin was always pale and perfect, or at most, a Mediterranean olive.

…

I just hope this makes you writers stop and think. You may think that you're writing your novels just for entertainment, and yes! I hope you are! but consciously nor not, you're teaching the world about what you value and what you call beautiful. What you leave out shows just as much as what you leave in.”

And the current ideal of beauty belongs to which culture? Yes, the American, which I want to mention in order to illustrate how complex the issue with cultural identity is and how hard its diversification will be. Because culture is not only art, religion, literature, music, but also the ideal of beauty, the dining manners, the body language [whether people will look you in the eye or avoid eye contact] and even the way a person will cross the street [which speaks a lot about Bulgarians].

I’m pumped to take on the challenge; throw magic, folklore and Bulgaria in the pot, but it’s not that easy from a technical side. I’m not writing for my fellow Bulgarians [who don’t read in English] and know the culture as well, if not better, as I do. I’m writing for outsiders, which makes brings a whole set of problems attached with the execution.

Ekaterina Sedia’s essay “Seeing Through Foreign Eyes” pretty much nails it:

“Each culture has its own baggage, assumptions, background noise that is so familiar it fades into invisibility. References common to everyone in any given culture that require no explanation – and it is tempting to assume that the rest of the world shares them. Who doesn’t know Nancy Drew or Crisco? So when reading translated literature, for me it is always a small jolt of joy to spot such things, small details that are so obvious to the author that they deserve barely a mention, and could only be guessed at. On the other hand, to a non-native, these things might appear strange and exotic, and the outsider will point them out and question.

In a way, this pointing and questioning mode of storytelling is common in fantasy: after all, we all are familiar with portal stories, where your normal person travels to a strange world and hopefully gets a native guide and will have things explained to them. In a way, American writers writing about foreign cultures provides the same set-up – they point and explain things a native wouldn’t find mention-worthy. They’re a guide who shares the reader’s references, and thus the things they find weird, the reader will too. They nudge conspiratorially, the writer is a reader’s ally, outside of the foreign milieu they are traveling through. If not careful, it results in blatant exotization.

A foreign writer describing their culture, however, is not the same thing at all. Their alliance is to the cultural milieu with which they share their perspective, and the American reader is thus pushed outside of the text; the readers may find themselves alone, and suspect that there are things being said they don’t understand. And it seems as if that’s a turn off to many American readers.”

Basically, for me it boils down to either write about my culture like a native and produce a book that could very well be unreadable – I’m a writer and I panic about this; it’s what we do to procrastinate – or conspire with my target audience [the bigger one, the US one], play the ever diligent tour guide and come off as a foreigner writing about Bulgaria. Let me say, it’s a lot more complicated than ‘we need more diversity in our fiction’.

As Ekaterina Sedia says:

“So the issue with books set in foreign cultures, I think, that even though many SF/F readers call for more perspectives and diversity, they don’t really want that. They want someone familiar to show them some exotic stuff without actually challenging the readers’ assumptions or values.”

I tend to agree with her.
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PS: It's up to use to change that you. I've not given up. I do plan on writing about Bulgaria, but I wanted to also open myself to how difficult it is in my particular case.