Unfortunately, the obsessive labellers and pigeonholers that some literary experts have become just don't see it: a language is not a country.
Eric makes some excellent points in his post (I hope he doesn't consider Liam a "pigeonholer," though
); however, the question I tend to ask myself whenever I read a book by Conrad or the later Nabokov is: What literature were they contributing to when they were writing
Lord Jim and
Lolita? I don't care about their ethnic background or their citizenship. Jonathan Littell is an American Jew, living in Barcelona and writing in French. Whatever his ethnicity (which is inborn) or his nationality (which is fluid, permeable and unstable), by writing
Les Bienveillantes he's contributing to the body of French literature.
A hypothetical example, if you please. An Icelandic astronaut with a penchant for writing poetry composes a sequence of haikus on national themes while on a mission to the Moon. During this time, Iceland enters a war with the U.K., is occupied, and subsequently loses its status as an independent nation. Back at home (whatever that is), the astronaut manages to publish his poetic sequence in the Icelandic language. So: what literature is he contributing to while he's orbiting the Moon?
Eric's mention of Gombrowicz is an excellent case in point. If he's writing in Polish, I'd classify him as a Polish writer, wherever he's living. Kafka was a German writer not because he was a German citizen (he wasn't) but because he chose to write in German. When you see a translation of
The Castle, it says translated from the
German by such-and-such.
The trick lies in distinguishing the finer line between the author's linguistic heritage (whether truly inherited or adopted) and his/her nationality, which can change overnight. Of course Elfriede Jelinek is an Austrian author, she lives in Austria, holds an Austrian passport and speaks German (I should imagine) with an Austrian accent. However when I open my copy of
The Piano Teacher to the title page, it says
translated from the German by Joachim Neugroschel. It doesn't say translated from the Austrian, as it doesn't say translated from the Czech in Kafka's case. This is the point I've been trying to make all along.
Of course, dozens of counter-arguments can be offered to challenge this view. What happens, as was the case with Ireland, when a nation loses its native language almost completely? Are Irish writers who write in English somehow not entirely Irish? Nonsense. Then what are they? Well, while their ethnicity may be Irish, and their citizenship may be Irish, British, American, Canadian or something else entirely, if they're writing in English they're contributing to the field of English literature. Translations of Yeats, Heaney and Joyce into Russian and Polish (just a random example, really) would all say translated from the English by [--], and not translated from the Irish.
You can put them under whatever flag you want based on ethnicity, nationality (which is sometimes dual), citizenship, etc, but to me, their chosen literary language is the ultimate factor.
But 'tis a muddle, sure as shit.
Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) was born in the Kingdom of Burgundy (somewhere in modern-day France), but was of Lombardic descent (Lombards were a Germanic nation originally from southern Scandinavia who settled in the Kingdom of Italy in the second half of the sixth century). In 1093 Anselm became Archbishop of Canterbury. He spent the rest of his life in England, and died there in April 1109. Anselm of Canterbury wrote countless works of theological nature,
in Latin. So, how would you classify him? What flag would you put him under? What country can claim him as part of its heritage?
Something to think about, certainly.
