Friday, August 2, 2013

Books and nationality

This week, instead of a Friday Five (which can be summed up by the following:  I finished hanging all the pictures in my room, and that I am going hiking tomorrow, so not many interesting happenings in the life of Elizabeth this week), I am going to talk about something that I've been curious about.

As I was looking through the books and authors I've read to meet the 2013 European Reading Challenge I came to a startling discovery.  I'd always had the niggling feeling I primarily read American authors with a smattering of UK authors and the occasional Australian.  And that's EXACTLY what I've been reading.  With addition of Juliet Marillier, the one Kiwi author I've read.  Here's what I've discovered:

1.  ALL contemporary YA authors I have come across are American. (the one exception I can think of is Finding Cassie Crazy by Jaclyn Moriarty, and I discovered that in high school)
2.  The ONLY genre I've read non-American authors is in sci-fi/fantasy, but I'm guessing half of the books I've read in the genre are still American. (With the exception of Rita Charbonnier who wrote Mozart's Sister, a historical fiction novel, and I know over the years there have been a few others here and there.  My point is there aren't very many of them)
3.  Classics don't count.  I'm talking books that have been published since I've been alive


(Except you know authors not kids.  Kids I can't escape. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE.)


I know that much of this can be explained by a few things, primarily that

1.  I live in America
2.  I read primarily YA fiction and of that primarily contemporary or sci-fi/fantasy, and maybe those genres have a higher American author ratio to those of other nationalities
3.  I am limited to countries that speak English primarily, or the books are popular enough they've been translated
4.  America and the U.K. have very high populations, so it makes sense there are more authors from there


Is it just that I'm American? I've read blogs written by people all over the world, but I feel like I'm still seeing the same books there.  I can't think of a single really big name author (keeping in mind I'm dealing with YA, not normal fiction.  In normal fiction it's still primarily American and UK fiction I'm finding, but I can think of plenty of authors who don't fit in that category) that isn't American or from the U.K.  Can you? 

9 comments:

  1. There are some really really good YA authors from Australia. You probably have heard of them though. Melina Marchetta and Markus Zusak are the first two that come to mind.

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    1. I've definitely heard of Markus Zusak (who I didn't know was Australian, but yay!). I had thought I hadn't heard of Melina Marchetta, but I just looked her up and I've heard LOADS about Jellicoe Road (all good things too!). Thanks for giving me a little more faith in the world!

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    2. I left you a reply on your comment on my blog, but thought I would share here too. Epic Reads made some YA Reading maps. Here is Europe: http://www.epicreads.com/blog/planet-ya-europe/. And here is Oceania: http://www.epicreads.com/blog/planet-ya-oceania/. And here is South America: http://www.epicreads.com/blog/planet-ya-oceania/. They haven't done an Asian one I've seen, but I hope they will soon.

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    3. I should also mention that those lists are necessary authors from the countries, but books that take place in that country. However, there are probably some authors from that country writing about that country. You'll just have to research it. :)

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    4. AWESOME! The challenge calls for authors or books in the country, so it helps out with the challenge a lot! I'm super excited about this haha

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  2. Hmm....I don't read a lot of YA, but I seem to suffer from a similar problem of white US/UK authors.

    I am currently reading my second work in translation this summer, but both books are for adults.

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    1. What books are they? I'm always on the look out for these sorts of things, even if this post was geared towards YA

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  3. I can offer you two excellent German authors--Antonia Michaelis (Tiger Moon and others) and Cornelia Funke (Reckless, and others). And if you want to add a Finnish author, you could always try the Moomintroll books, which are lovely! (I'd suggest starting with Moominland Midwinter).

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    1. Excellent! I have Tiger Moon with me, and I love Cornelia Funke. The Moomintroll books look adorable!

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