sheenaghpugh | Nationality of writers: what will I be?

(and no, the answer isn't che sera, sera, third on my list of most hated songs). It's a writer thing.)

If I call someone a German poet, or a French novelist, I tend to mean someone who writes poems in the German language, or novels in the French language. The person in question might actually hold a Swiss or Canadian passport, but by and large I don't think birth nationality has anything like the impact on a person's writing that language does; we do not think of Joseph Conrad as a Polish writer. In that sense I am and will always be an English writer, though I'd probably phrase it a writer in English, because my reaction to "are you English?" would always be "no, I'm bloody not!"

Having said that, where you live, whether out of choice or necessity, is always going to affect your writing if only by osmosis. It's possible that one's sense of heredity affects it too, though myself I don't think that can go farther back than your own parents and grandparents, who will pass on their sense of who they are to you. And if you never actually go the length of travelling to your supposed roots, I'm not sure they really exist; I've met so many people who professed to be proud of their Irish or Welsh descent and yet had never set foot in the places concerned. That's at best a sentimental pseudo-attachment. But environment, whether chosen or compelled, is different.

I am by birth half Welsh, half Irish if you go by heredity, all Welsh if you go by environment, given that my mother, though wholly Irish by descent, was born and brought up in Wales. I wasn't born in Wales but I've been living, writing and publishing in Wales for 40 years and calling myself a Welsh writer. Being called one too, by most though not all -for some, writing in English is enough to disqualify you from the title, others would contend you needed to be born here and/or have the matter of Wales as the main concern of your writing; others would say you need to live and publish here while some few would include anyone born here but living elsewhere and publishing with a non-Welsh house.

"Living and publishing in Wales", which applies to me, works for most though; it does for instance qualify you for Welsh writing awards. My friend Matthew Francis the poet, who moved from Winchester, was surprised to find he at once qualified as a Welsh poet, rather in the way that football players with an Irish great-uncle used to find Jack Charlton on the phone. (At the time it might have seemed a bit daft; these days, Matthew having been some years in Aberystwyth, it seems natural). One could of course reject any kind of localism and just be A Writer, but the administrative mechanics of the trade don't really work like that; where you live determines which arts body hands out the dosh for one thing. And people do like to have a pigeonhole to put you in.

So what if you move? At the moment I'm shuttling between Cardiff and Shetland, but from next year, though for family reasons involving a Very Old Cat, I will still have a Cardiff address as well, I'll be living in Shetland and visiting Cardiff. What am I then: a Shetland poet, a deracinated Welsh poet? If someone's work takes him from Birmingham to Swansea to Glasgow he can't be an English, Welsh and Scottish poet by turns, can he? How long does it take to become something, or stop being something?

Oddly enough I've always been fascinated by deracination and changing one's identity, and I know a lot of my friends, including several writers, have done it. Any views on the above?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

federhirn.livejournal.com

Hmmm. So what am I (going to be, if I actually write something that gets published)?

A German writer?
A German writing in English?
An English writer?
A Welsh writer?
A German living in Wales writing in English?
...and one of my short stories was published in the US, so does that make me an American writer?

Personally, I prefer to be pigeon-holed by the writing, rather than the location. I see myself as speculative fiction writer. My writing is largely about other worlds anyway, so it is easy for me to say that my physical location does not matter all that much...

Although, secretly, I vaguely aspire to be a London writer, without necessarily living there most of the time.

From:

sheenaghpugh

Yes, you were one of the people I had in mind! And like Conrad, you decided to write in a language that wasn't your first; which intrigues me - when did that come about and why?

From:

federhirn.livejournal.com

It came about because I moved to the UK.

I did write some German stories while I was a student in London, mostly for Ernst Wurdack's Storyolympiade Verlag, but I'd always assumed I'd start writing in English. I read a lot of Pratchett and Douglas Adams when I was a teenager, and had basically stopped reading German authors by the age of 15. The degree at Glamorgan was partially to give me the confidence in my use of the English language to help me to do the switch. So, basically, it happened around 2003 mostly for the reason of convenience.

There's lots of factors: I don't use German very much, so am getting more and more rusty. The English language is better for certain kinds of humour (although I have not written anything funny in ages!). The market is bigger (more opportunities to collect rejection slips!)

Writing in English is a little bit like aspiring actors moving to Los Angeles / Hollywood: It's where all the action is, so it has its attractions.

From:

sheenaghpugh

Writing in English is a little bit like aspiring actors moving to Los Angeles / Hollywood: It's where all the action is, so it has its attractions.

Oh dear. As a linguist who hates to see languages homogenising and dying, that makes me slightly sad!

From: (Anonymous)

I consider myself an Irish writer, and that's based solely on my nationality (in the passport sense). There's an airport test you can take - often, I'm stopped at airports by over zealous security guards who assume I'm some sort of belated IRA bomber or a drug smuggler. I have to fill out forms and sign my name and, among other things, state my nationality and occupation. 'Irish' and 'Writer' is what I use, and don't see what else I could put. (The occupation I fill out with a certain relish, after years of having to put 'Student'.) That's the only workable definition for me - Irish writer. I might say that I'm an Irish writer because my literary heart is in Ireland; that I write about Dublin often and am interested in Irish culture, stories, dialect, etc. But equally I think Samuel Beckett was an Irish writer, even if his work isn't always set in Ireland (or seemingly anywhere), or if he published firstly in French and lived abroad. Because his passport says Irish.

So, even though I've lived for the past eight years in Wales, don't speak Irish very well and never write in it, I'm an Irish writer. So I'd be at odds with Sheenagh on the Conrad thing - Joseph Conrad is a Polish writer. I also think most Polish people (readers and writers especially) would agree with that!

PS. Re. the Irish international footballers thing - yep, those 'English' players (John Aldridge, Mark Lawrenson, Mick McCarthy, et al) played for Ireland and were 'technically Irish' in the eyes of FIFA and UEFA because of relatives having Irish blood. But that was usually no more than a case of mutual convenience, and with their English accents they'd never be held in quite the same regard in Ireland as Roy Keane or John Giles or Liam Brady. Imagine if Roy Keane had been born and raised in London after his vaguely Irish grandfather landed there years ago, and had the attendant cockney accent rather than his broad Cork brogue!

Incidentally, I believe Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard, both top English internationals, could have played for Ireland. As an Irish football fan, and stuck with the hapless Glen Whelan not-too-great Kevin Doyle, I wish they had.

Trev

From:

sheenaghpugh

Conrad's passport said GB eventually; he naturalized. Now this was complicated; he spent quite a lot of his youth trying to acquire another nationality because the one he was born with made him liable for conscription into the Russian army. He tried to become Austro-Hungarian but they turned him down, so he went to France (at 16) and eventually Britain. And the experiences that seem to have started him writing were those in the French and British navies, not those of his childhood. Yet he did choose to be buried under his real name.

From:

sheenaghpugh

Agree re you, Trevor*, btw - you'll be an Irish writer wherever you are. But not so sure about Beckett, at least not when he's actually writing in French.

*Trevor Byrne, author of Ghosts and Lightning

From:

kalypso-v.livejournal.com

It's not a term I use very often but, if you want a single word for a Welsh poet writing in English and living in Shetland, "British" comes to mind...

But I think it's really mindset. I will continue to perceive you as Welsh, in the same way that, during my eight years in London, I was quite annoyed if anyone attempted to identify me as anything other than Mancunian/Lancastrian/Northerner. You can take me out of the North, but you can't take it out of me.

From:

sheenaghpugh

I was quite annoyed if anyone attempted to identify me as anything other than Mancunian/Lancastrian/Northerner

Ever since reading this, I've been racking my brains for the name of the Northumbrian(?) churchman - might have been a bishop - who got into trouble for inviting the help of Viking mercenaries against some enemy from down south - I can just hear him protesting "well, they may be heathens but at least they aren't bloody southerners!"

This is one trouble with "British", even for Engliah folk -my OH, who identifies as Geordie, doesn't much like "British" because someone might take him for a southerner....

From:

kalypso-v.livejournal.com

"well, they may be heathens but at least they aren't bloody southerners!"

It sounds perfectly logical to me. There was a discussion about climate change at my local Labour party some years ago, in which someone said "Still... if London gets flooded, is that really a big deal for us?" And I said "Well, of course it is, the Londoners might turn up in Manchester!"

From:

gillyp.livejournal.com

British poet? ;o)

From:

sheenaghpugh

I guess the fact that I never even thought of "British" indicates the extent to which it doesn't really exist as a concept for me:)

From:

gillyp.livejournal.com

Interesting.

I'm English, proudly so but have no problems at all with being 'lumped in' with the rest of the UK. :o) More than happy to be lined up with the Scots, Welsh and any Irish who want to be included too. I think British blood is too mixed to really make it a big deal, myself.

From:

kalypso-v.livejournal.com

My sister, who's lived in Germany for more than thirty years, uses the term "British" as default (I'm not sure whether she's modified that since she acquired dual nationality). I think living outside the UK she's more conscious of the whole than some of us inside - or possibly she encounters a lot of Germans who use "England" for the whole and she's got used to correcting them.

I think I tend to avoid "British" because of the association with flag-waving nationalism (though one can argue that the same applies to the constituent countries). As above, when I need to describe the state of which I am a citizen I say "UK", and that's what I put on forms asking for my nationality. But that's less easy to use in colloquial speech.

From:

sheenaghpugh

My problem isn't being lumped in with anyone - as you say we're probably all part Assyrian for that matter. It's more that I can't visualise a "British" identity at all; it's a bit like calling yourself European, just covers too much.

From:

julesjones

Oh, I can -- as my husband likes to point out whenever I give a demonstration, the English call themselves English, the Scots call themselves Scottish, the Welsh call themselves Welsh, and the Northern Irish, or half of them at any rate, call themselves British....

From: (Anonymous)

Unfortunately it doesn't exist (the concept of 'british') for the french either. I say unfortunately, because they refer to everyone who speaks english, as 'les anglais'. And given the proximity (at least with my accent) of 'gauloise' and 'galloise' I often get some strange looks.

I used to have quite firm opinions on my identity - welsh poet/writer - but they're blurring, maybe with age as well as several relocations. I'm far from being fluent in french but already I feel that my relationship with language and how I can express myself is starting to change. In the few short things I have written straight into french I know I couldn't translate them literally into english and be happy with the result. Writing in another language seems to offer different territory.

It's a wait and see situation for now though.

Lynne
www.lynnerees.co.uk

From:

sheenaghpugh

Yes, changing languages is major! When I'm in Germany long neough to start thinking in German I know I'm thinking differently. And the one poem I wrote in German, I could never put into English to please me.

From: (Anonymous)

Well, I have no idea what I would be called. The problem with "English" is that it implies being from England, whereas that's less of an issue for most languages. So if I said I was an Israeli writer it would be wrongly assumed that I write in Hebrew, or that English is not my first language. An Australian writer - well, I haven't lived there more than half my life, but my English is definitely Australian.

From:

sheenaghpugh

So if I said I was an Israeli writer it would be wrongly assumed that I write in Hebrew, or that English is not my first language.

I don't know that I would have assumed that, in fact. But I would probably assume that your writing focused on specifically Israeli issues a lot more than I know it does. I think of you as an Australian writer, partly because of the way you use English but more because, though your descriptions of many countries are very vivid, when you describe Australia you always sound as if you're talking about home!

From:

birdmaddgirl.livejournal.com

What about identities that do not fit into passport categories, particularly where people have little choice in the matter? Is a Kashmiri writer a Kashmiri writer despite not having a nation in the political sense?

Of course I think of personal examples. My grandmother was born British on Newfoundland. Although she emigrated to the States with her husband in the 50s (while still in her 20s), she has never a day in her life considered herself American or Canadian. She has Canadian citizenship, but if you ask her, she tells you she's British. And she has a point, in a nice roundabout way that requires a story.

I wonder for myself, am I a Native American/Cherokee writer? My family is Cherokee, although still in tribal-paperwork-limbo. But I speak no Cherokee, have never been to either reservation, do not write on the subject of Native American concerns specifically. I self-identify as Cherokee, though, and feel a deep connection to the Cherokee worldview, which undoubtedly influences my poetry.

In the end, I suppose that the writer's self-identification matters most, if known. How else to decide on all the writers throughout history who cross the lines or come from a heritage that lacks political power?

From:

sheenaghpugh

In the end, I suppose that the writer's self-identification matters most, if known.

I think that's very true, and I particularly like that "if known..."

From: (Anonymous)

Does actual nationality or residency matter as much as the sort of work one does and the preoccupations one has within the broader writing project? It seems to me that different traditions, associated with particular countries or regions, encompass a set of shared values or approaches (Arab writing being the first one that springs to mind)...it is, in some loose sense, possible to describe such work according to its priorities (which, naturally are both historically anchored and evolving). So, can't writers identify themselves according to the approaches and priorities (and problems they are trying to solve) inherent to their work? In that way, it is possible, at various times, for me to be an Arab writer, a London writer, a Welsh writer, and so on...Place of birth, or the place of birth of one's parents, doesn't necessarily have to come into it, unless we so choose.

From: (Anonymous)

Children of English parentage born and brought up in Australia call themselves Australian. And if later they become writers presumably they call themselves Australian writers. James Joyce was always considered an Irish writer as was Beckett. Not by any means in the same breath,
as a child of English/Cornish, Irish, Welsh, Australian forebears, born and brought up in London, I consider myself a Londoner but an English writer. I think you'll always be a Welsh poet but a poet first and foremost.

Geraldine

From: (Anonymous)

Really interesting post Sheenagh. For me this question of nationality is a tricky one: I'm born to two Northern Irish parents, but have been raised entirely in England, and now live in London. I sound English, but support Ireland in the rugby; I would never live in Belfast, but England is not my ancestral 'home' either.

I think it's revealing that you talk about how people like to pigeon-hole: this is so true, especially when there's some choice to make about that person (whether to buy their poetry collection, or spend time going to their talk, or fund their year researching Venezuelan playwrights). It's a handy category for someone else to use to sort you and your work from the bewildering amount of stuff out there they won't be interested in. The nationality, political movement, genre, even name you present to the world (if you use a pseudonym) and put on your work, however implicit, are your ways of helping people make a decision about your work, a very base level sort of marketing if you want.

But that's the point: those categories are all for other people. Sheenagh Pugh 'the author' is the award winning Welsh poet of English-Irish decent who has published this many collections and that many novels. Sheenagh Pugh 'the writer' is the person who sits down at the desk and writes, and what that person writes may have everything or nothing to do with being Welsh (or for that matter with being a woman or an award winning poet or the person who wrote those poems in the past). Of course these things can all potentially affect your writing, but they'll never be able to describe who that person, 'the writer', is on that day. The only thing that can hope to do that is the writing itself.

From: (Anonymous)

It's Harvey by the way (playing with the writer/identity theme in anonymous posts even!)

From: (Anonymous)

Interesting discussion! I had a similar debate with my sister recently - as she would always describe herself as English, (we were both born in London and brought up in England), whereas I would always say British, as I feel that with my Irish/Welsh/West Country genes, to say I am English/an English writer feels too narrow for me. British is a wider, vaguer description that feels more natural. I might even say I was a Dorset writer, if pushed. Though that might make it sound like I write in yokel dialect about cider making.

I also am not so keen on certain things I associate with being "English and proud" - that whole St George Cross waving/football hooliganism/BNP/Daily Mail readers strain of small-minded angry patriotism. Which is a shame, really. As I do live in England, and there is much about it that I love, and I wish it wasn't associated with stuff like that.

Like Trev, I also fail the airport test, though whether that's on account of my Irish surname or my furtive, suspicious ways, or the fact female customs officials just like to feel me up, I don't know.

Jo Q

From: (Anonymous)

ps. I believe I could also play for Ireland or Wales or England at international level. Just waiting for the call.

From:

sheenaghpugh

Oh, those lascivious customs officers! The male ones always seem to stop my husband.

From:

jopre.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)

Very interesting question!
I used to hate answering “where are you from?” when I was in the UK:
“Well I'm Australian, but my home is in New Zealand, except at the moment I'm living in Yorkshire and studying in Wales, and– oh, you've gone.”

One option is to invent a new term, and try to get other people to use it. There are a few of us here who refer to ourselves as Tasmanauts, although that still requires a bit of explanation.

Otherwise … Welsh/Orkney?
Other-Jo

From:

sheenaghpugh

That'd be Welsh/Shetland, but it's an interesting concept because of course "London Welsh" and "London Irish" exist. I think you might need a sizeable community first though....

That "where are you from" query is a bugger for anyone who didn't grow up in one place. I used to say "nowhere in particular"; and watch people first look puzzled and then glaze over as they feared I might explain.

From: (Anonymous)

I think nationality is where you are born or where you have spent most of your life - but most importantly what you feel. Having lived in many places I don't know what I feel, really, but I see that an Irishness comes through in my writing even though I feel it's influenced by where I've lived.....I think it's an open book, open to change....
Shauna

From:

lilliburlero.livejournal.com

The question "where are you from?" requires from me a short paragraph, which is pretty dismaying to the interlocutor who expects a single word. Non-Irish people tend to assume I'm Irish, and increasingly, Irish people can't place my accent. Quite anomalously, I've picked up soft Irish consonants and kept my English vowels, whereas the reverse is true of most long-term English residents in Ireland. Apparently it makes me sound like a upper-middle-class South Dublin Protestant (to which I am tempted to give the response "Au contraire".)
As a writer, most of what I've published has appeared in Irish journals, and there's substantial Irish content, as you'd expect, given that I've spent almost my whole adult life in Ireland. But I don't think this makes me an Irish writer - that one, I think, is a closed shop to the Irish-born or at least Irish-parented; but then the description clings tenaciously, and Irish claims are made for all sorts of people, like Lafcadio Hearn (there's a good test case for you).

From:

sheenaghpugh

The question "where are you from?" requires from me a short paragraph, which is pretty dismaying to the interlocutor who expects a single word.

I know how you feel! I hesitate to answer that question properly, because one is reminded of asking "how are you" only to receive a detailed bulletin on someone's state of health rather than the expected "fine, thanks".

From:

lilliburlero.livejournal.com

I have some one-word answers for desultory social purposes, but I'm a bad liar, so I tend to hesitate for a moment before giving them, which makes me seem foolishly unsure, as if I've mislaid my parents. And there is always the possibility of a desultory acquaintance becoming more, and the dreaded "But I thought you said you were from...", whereupon a much longer paragraph must be wheeled out in explanation.

From:

andrewcraigwilliams.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)

I've never given it that much thought because it's easy for me: Welsh writer, living in Wales, writing in both English and Welsh. I can trace my family tree back for hundreds of years, back to coracle makers in Carmarthenshire. I will always be a Welsh writer though, even if I moved to England, Scotland, Japan, wherever...

From:

sheenaghpugh

It is way easier for someone like you! When I lived in St Clears I knew an old lady who'd never been further from home than Neath. I wouldn't have wanted her life; I like travelling, but she certainly knew where she was from.

From:

emmadarwin.livejournal.com

Anyone planning to submit to Salt's new literary fiction list (I guess they mean long fiction), might want to clarify where they come from, or at least where their fiction does:

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/92489-salt-just-one-book-campaign-staves-off-closure.html

I assume that it's because that's where the Arts Council and other subsidies lie, and yay for Salt surviving, but as a Londoner born and bred, I'm snarling. My WIP is largely set in Kent: I've decided it's Jutish...

"Quite anomalously, I've picked up soft Irish consonants and kept my English vowels... Apparently it makes me sound like a upper-middle-class South Dublin Protestant (to which I am tempted to give the response "Au contraire"."

This amused me, because my Irish grandmother, marrying and naturalising in England at 30, came from exactly that background, acquired English vowels, but kept a a soft, forward L, for example, to the end of her 94 years.