{"id":961,"date":"2016-07-23T15:31:18","date_gmt":"2016-07-23T15:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/staging\/?p=961"},"modified":"2026-05-28T23:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T23:00:10","slug":"irene-marques","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/irene-marques\/","title":{"rendered":"Irene Marques"},"content":{"rendered":"

Notes on the Incestuous and Monocultural Nexus of the Literati <\/strong><\/h3>\n

This piece initially started as a response to Mark Medley\u2019s story “How Liz Howard went from studying science to the Griffin Prize shortlist” published on May 31 in The Globe and Mail<\/em>. Then, as it often goes when we write, my mind was asking, or rather pushing me, to go further and explore other issues related to the literary scene in Canada, and to a certain extent, also around the world. So here I go\u2014and I ask that you kindly hear me, consider the thoughts that come to my being, as I live and love, as I think and write and read myself and others. As I walk the world trying to understand its mysteries, its beauty and ugliness, its otherness\u2014straddling identities, languages, reading different literary tongues<\/em> that show me the vastness and complexity of  life, of being, of seeing\u2026<\/p>\n

In “How Liz Howard went from studying science to the Griffin Prize shortlist” Medley reveals to us Liz Howard\u2019s touching journey to the Griffin Prize shortlist (she is now the actual winner of the prestigious prize). It is a nice and touching story and I enjoyed reading Howard\u2019s humane voyage from her humble beginnings, her struggles with choosing a path in life, to her own realization that writing was her true call (despite the societal pressure to do otherwise). However, I think Medley missed to point out something quite crucial<\/em> here: the incestuous nature of the publishing industry in Canada where we have creative writing Professors, who in this case, also happened to be acclaimed poets, referring their own students to publishing houses, thus facilitating the process of getting published. As Medley writes:<\/p>\n

About two years ago, Liz Howard received an out-of-the-blue e-mail from Dionne Brand. An award-winning poet and novelist, Brand had recently been tasked with helping to relaunch McClelland & Stewart\u2019s poetry program, and she wondered if Howard, whom she had taught creative writing at the University of Guelph, had a manuscript ready to submit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In a world where it is almost impossible to get an answer from a publisher (if you are a ‘no one’), this ‘aid’ goes a long way: it seems to actually be the way. <\/em>The manuscript was very well received by McClelland & Stewart and within a week of submitting it, Howard was offered a publishing contract. All in all, a very swift and efficient process.<\/p>\n

This incestuous nexus in the literary world is a well-known problem in Canada\u2014and in fact it is becoming an issue in much of the world\u2014though it is not discussed intelligently, complexly, honestly or openly very often, at least not in public circles or forums where it ought to be discussed such as national newspapers that devote sections to books and literature. Such incestuous nexus seriously compromises the integrity of writers, the awarding of literary prizes, the diversity in writing and the overall writing industry. Professor Sarah Brouillette from Carleton University addresses this matter in a very insightful and multiplex way in her article “On Some Recent Worrying over World Literature\u2019s Commodity Status” published in 2014 in the Maple Tree Literary Supplement<\/em>. She discusses how, increasingly, publishing houses are linked to University creative writing programs, editors, agents, literary council boards, etc., all forming a literary connected global \u2018elite\u2019 (a nexus) that decides what good literature is, how and what gets to be circulated and who gets the accolades. Other critics of the literary industry have pointed out similar problems and Brouillette makes note of several in her text:<\/p>\n

Increasingly written by authors employed by universities, world literature \u201chas become an empty vessel for the occasional self-ratification of the global elite.\u201d It is \u201clike a Davos summit,\u201d they maintain, \u201cwhere experts, national delegates, and celebrities discuss, calmly and collegially, between sips of bottled water, the terrific problems of a humanity whose predicament they appear to have escaped\u201d\u2026 [As n+1<\/em> notes] \u2018It has its own economy, consisting of international publishing networks, scouts, and book fairs. It has its prizes: the Nobel, of course, but more powerful and snazzier is the Man Booker, and the Man Booker International. Its political arm is PEN. And it has a social calendar full of literary festivals, which bring global elites into contact with the glittering stars of World Lit.\u2019\u2026 [S]candals about who gets to benefit from the celebration of a given work are willingly orchestrated and anticipated by writers, marketing departments, agents, editors, et cetera.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Brouillette continues to argue, quoting theorists such as Emily Apter, Rebecca Walkowitz and the anti-establishment literary magazine n+1,<\/em> this nexus of connected literary elite, creates a monoculture in writing, where we often see the same type of writing (literal, plot-driven, minimalist, etc.) that tends to erase difference and privileges certain global languages (mostly English though languages like Mandarin, Spanish, and French, are also important):<\/p>\n

[This] writing is \u201cborn-translated,\u201d in Rebecca Walkowitz\u2019s terms, in that works of contemporary world literature \u201canticipate their own future in several literary geographies\u201d (174). It wants to be read across borders, it wants to be included in lucrative international translation rights deals, it wants to be understood by people all around the world\u2014people with the requisite cultural capital, that is\u2014and it wants to be adapted for film. Complexities of style and language are deemphasized; the writing is flat; plot dominates.
\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When one gives preferential treatment to a certain language and literature, one is also putting forward a certain ethic and aesthetic (a way of life) that then affects the world globally. As noted by Hephzibah Anderson in \u201cWhy won\u2019t English speakers read books in translation\u201d, only about 2 to 3% of works written in other languages are translated into English, whereas given the predominance of the English language in the world, many works in English are translated into other languages. This imbalance in translation exacerbates the \u201cmonoculture\u201d and we end up with a literature that favors what I term the Anglo-Saxon ethic and aesthetic which then enters the consciousness<\/em> of the world making it the norm, entrenching the world\u2019s corners and erasing or pushing aside what is written<\/em> there (the stories and languages and worldviews).[i]<\/a> We thus have a one-way type of transaction, an unbalanced act of assimilation, reminiscent of colonial times when Africans were taught in English (or other European languages) and had English (or French or Portuguese) works translated into African languages\u2014to teach them the way, the civilized way,<\/em> as it was called in those days\u2014but not the other way around. Language and literature were powerful mechanisms to colonize the mind, to borrow from the well-known book Decolonizing the Mind: The Language of African Literature <\/em>by Kenyan scholar and writer Ng\u0169g\u0129 wa Thiong’o.<\/em><\/p>\n

There is a parallel that I want to draw here with the situation in Canada. We are, as the \u2018story\u2019 always goes, a very culturally diverse country. In Toronto alone over 50% of the population was not born in Canada and thus speaks many other languages. Though these people may write in English, they possess in them an ethic and aesthetic that comes from their mother tongue and from being exposed to literatures in that language, and which they then (naturally) inject in their writing. We carry in us things from the past, those sacred stamps that cannot and should not be erased, forgotten or suppressed: things of the mind, things of the soul, things of the body. Now, if you allow me the self-serving liberty, I will use myself and Paulo da Costa as examples here: we are both bilingual writers writing in English and Portuguese. When we write in English, there is often a specific ethic and aesthetic that can be perceived in our work which comes from the Portuguese language and the type of literatures we were exposed to, which tend to value the lyric, the metaphoric, the philosophical, the emotional, the magic-realist, etc. This ethic and aesthetic is quite different from the Anglo-Saxon one which tends to value realism, minimalism, pragmatism, materialism and a certain type of rationalism. It is this latter ethic and aesthetic that dominates much of the Canadian literary scene as I see it. It seems increasingly to also dominate the global literary field as well, as already noted. It follows then that our writing (the writing of those who deviate from this ethic and aesthetic) is affected by this \u201cmonoculture\u201d imposed by the literary elite\u2014it is not as welcome as it should be in a culture that wants to thrive on diversity and constantly boasts about having concretized it.<\/p>\n

I argue that in Canada people at the forefront of the literary industry, from agents, to major publishing houses, to literary and Jury panels responsible for awarding literary grants and prizes (such as Ontario Arts Council or Canada Council for the Arts and others) are people predominantly from the Anglo-Saxon ethnic pool, born and educated in Canada, in many cases quite young and who don\u2019t have a lot of work published or any extensive knowledge of, or training in, international literatures. These are the people who largely decide what is published, who gets grants, reviews and accolades. This also leads to the existence of an \u201cimagined literary audience\u201d, in other words, the idea that people who read the most and buy the most books are from the Anglo-Saxon pool and so writing is catered to them. In a recent piece published in Open Book Toronto<\/em> titled \u201c12 Reasons Why Canlit\u2019s Got Me So Tired\u201d Jael Richardson points to the lack of people of colour in the Canadian literary scene and its overwhelming whiteness (\u2018white\u2019 is also a colour of course!). I agree but contend that we are dealing here with a ‘certain type’ of whiteness, people who mostly espouse the Anglo-Saxon ethic and aesthetic, who read and write primarily\u2014and therefore identify with, favor, promote, publish and praise\u2014a literature that reflects that ethic and aesthetic. This then is what passes for Canadian mainstream literature\u2014while most of what deviates from this ethic and aesthetic may be qualified as ethnic, immigrant or go by any other name. It is as if there are Canadian writers (apparently universal tellers of truth) and then minor Canadian writers or culturally diverse writers, the latter being defined by ethnicity as if any group could live (exist) outside ethnicity. These are simplistic, outdated and divisive categories that do not reflect the reality of Canada and constitute remnants of a colonial thinking and European enlightenment ideologies. For more on this subject, see also \u201cWhy literary critics failed to understand and define Austin Clarke, a Canadian writer far ahead of his time\u201d by Paul Barret published in  the National Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I will venture another proposition here (which may have already been advanced by linguistics somewhere), and forgive me if I sound arrogant: I actually believe that writers who have access to two languages and are fully bilingual, can create more unique works of fiction in both languages for each language they know feeds the other, pushing it beyond its own limits, making it find novel ways of saying. And finding novel ways of saying should be the main goal of literary writing\u2014not to mention that language (writing) is a \u201ctechnology that restructures thought\u201d to borrow from Walter Ong\u2019s title, and one that adapts and changes with times to better capture reality. Language is a tool (albeit imperfect) for us to access the unknown, to expand our consciousness, to have a glimpse at a reality beyond us, and in that sense, it needs to be innovative and constantly rewrite (reinvent) itself. Precisely because language is an imperfect medium, a mere translation of a reality whose real nature and dimension escape us, we need to always manipulate it so that it can better tell that reality that we yearn to understand and connect with. I remember having this strong awareness (this sense of newness in my writing) when I wrote my first creative work in English and I still often feel it when I switch between writing in English and Portuguese, which I often do.
\n<\/p>\n

To have to mute our complex and different writing voice, in order words, to package it in a medium that the literary elite finds convenient, and which may suit their own tastes, is not conducive to real growth or diversity. It stifles us and prevents us from accessing a diversity of speaking voices. They could have shown us a different angle about the world and invite us to leave that closed shell where we may want to remain due to fear or any other reason. Such fears could also be related to the idea of an \u201cimagined literary audience\u201d and its supposed desires (as noted above) or to the mere marketing capitalist machinery that we think we cannot control. This latter issue cannot be fully addressed here but may also be related to this \u201cmonoculture\u201d in the writing industry as some (including Brouillette)  argue. She seems, though, to be saying by the end of her article that the current market capitalist system can easily adapt to the different demands of the market. She notes that \u201cIt is a characteristic of contemporary capital that it accommodates critique very well and finds the marketable kernel in even the most virulent anti-market gestures.\u201d And indeed we do have agency, or do we not? Isn\u2019t God dead (at least in most of the West) as Nietzsche<\/em> pronounced over a century ago? Or has God become something else? And do we not in fact yearn to exit our limited selves, to read people who do not live and think and write like us, who we may not really understand; people who may confuse us with their style and form of writing and therefore force us to grow? Isn\u2019t that how we exit the loneliness of the self and expand our consciousness? How do we maintain the awe of living alive if not by constantly rediscovering the world and its people, reconsidering our self in relation to the other self and finally coming to perceive our self as a minuscule part of an immense cosmos of others and otherness? Yes\u2014I want to say. The Brazilian writer, Clarice Lispector, puts it more beautifully at the beginning of her novella The Hour of the Star<\/em>: \u201cEverything in the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born.\u201d It is this \u201cyes\u201d that we may in fact need and which may allow us to come to see ourselves as part of the other, suspending the dichotomy of \u201cthem\u201d and \u201cus\u201d and finding a common humanity, a solidarity, rediscovering the dialectical \u201cwhole\u201d that we are and were always meant to perform. Because our collectivity demands it. Because we are social beings that need the mirror of the other to find ourselves. It may be that all art is propaganda, propaganda about a way of being and seeing and living\u2014thus the need to have the art of different peoples be acknowledged and nourished and not silenced. As W.E.B. DuBois wisely puts it in \u201cCriteria of Negro Art\u201d:<\/p>\n

All Art is propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda. But I do care when propaganda is confined to one side while the other is stripped and silent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Were Liz Howard to submit her own manuscript directly to McClelland & Stewart without the aid of the well-known and critically acclaimed intermediary that Dionne Brand is, it is quite possible that she would not even get a reply. I am not suggesting here that Howard\u2019s writing is not outstanding and does not merit high accolades. My interest is in pointing out the incestuous nature of our literary industry and the monoculture that arises from that since we have a specific connected elite serving as intermediary or gatekeeper. It is necessary to open up a discussion about this pernicious nexus so that we can create a more equitable environment where all those who write and write well and devote time and love to the craft can have a fair access to the publishing market. And \u201cwell\u201d here is also to be<\/em> understood as reflecting a variety of ethics and aesthetics as noted above. This is not what I see reflected in Canadian literature. To have to depend on ‘connections’ to see our work out there is not really satisfying: not for the writers and not for the publishers. If our spirit of justice is alive, that is, for it is a reminder of what power and privilege can do: either allow us to enter the \u201chouse\u201d in red carpet style or stare at it from the outside, yearning, yearning, with beautiful wide eyes, in open, persistent and innocent belief, for a just and naturally welcoming invitation. Because we are equal\u2014equal a priori<\/em>. Let us recall what Michel Foucault tells us in \u201cTruth and Power\u201d on the pernicious and delicate matter that Truth and Power are:<\/p>\n

Truth\u2019 is to be understood as a system of ordered procedures for the production, regulation, distribution, circulation, and operation of statements. \u201cTruth” is linked in a circular relation with systems of power that produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it\u2014a “regime” of truth. (132)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Works Cited<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anderson, Hephzibah. \u201cWhy won\u2019t English speakers read books in translation.\u201d BBC. <\/em>October 21 2014. Web. 2 June 2016. < http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/culture\/story\/20140909-why-so-few-books-in-translation<\/a>><\/p>\n

Barret, Paul. \u201cWhy literary critics failed to understand and define Austin Clarke, a Canadian writer far ahead of his time.\u201d National Post<\/em>. Toronto, June 30 2016. Web. 23 July 2016. <http:\/\/news.nationalpost.com\/arts\/books\/why-literary-critics-failed-to-understand-and-define-austin-clarke-a-canadian-writer-far-ahead-of-his-time><\/p>\n

Brouiellete, Sarah. \u201cOn Some Recent Worrying over World Literature\u2019s Commodity Status.\u201d Maple Tree Literary Supplement <\/em>(Issue 18). <\/em>Web. 10 June 2016. <<\/em>https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/impressions\/<\/em><\/a>><\/em><\/p>\n

Du Bois, W.E.B. \u201cCriteria of Negro Art.\u201d Web. June 2 2016.  <http:\/\/www.coreknowledge.org\/mimik\/mimik_uploads\/documents\/297\/Du%20Bois%20WEB%20%20Criteria%20of%20Negro%20Art.pdf ><\/p>\n

Foucault, Michel. \u201cTruth and Power.\u201d Power: Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954-1984, Vol 3.<\/em> New York, NY: The New Press, 2000. 111-133. Print.<\/p>\n

Lispector, Clarice. The Hour of the Star. <\/em>Trans and Forward. Giovanni Pontiero. Manchester: Carcanet, 1986.  Print.<\/p>\n

Medley, Mark. “How Liz Howard went from studying science to the Griffin Prize short list.” The Globe and Mail<\/em>. Toronto, May 31 2016. Web. 10 June 2016. <http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/arts\/books-and-media\/how-liz-howard-went-from-studying-science-to-writing-award-nominated-poetry\/article30217639\/><\/p>\n

Ong, J. Walter. \u201cWriting is a Technology that Restructures Thought.\u201d  The Written Word: Literacy in Transition. Ed. Gerd Bauman. New York: <\/em>Oxford University Press, 1986. 23-50. Print.<\/p>\n

Richardson, Jael. \u201c12 Reasons Why Canlit\u2019s Got Me So Tired.\u201d Open Book Toronto<\/em>. July 11 2016. Web. 23 July 2016.<\/p>\n

Wa Thiong’o, Ng\u0169g\u0129. Decolonizing the Mind: The Language of African Literature. <\/em>London: J. Currey, 1986.<\/p>\n

 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Notes<\/strong><\/p>\n

[i]<\/a> On the importance of translation and its relation to healthy literatures, the Canadian publisher, Biblioasis’ International Translation Series aptly notes the following: \u201cThe Biblioasis International Translation Series is dedicated to publishing world literature in English in Canada. The editors believe that translation is the lifeblood of literature, that a language that is not in touch with linguistic traditions loses its creative validity, and that the worldwide spread of English makes literary translation more urgent now than ever before.” See Biblioasis International Translation Series<\/em> <http:\/\/www.biblioasistranslation.com\/about.html?ckattempt=1<\/a>><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Notes on the Incestuous and Monocultural Nexus of the Literati<\/strong> This piece initially started as a response to Mark Medley\u2019s story “How Liz Howard went from studying science to the Griffin Prize short list” published on May 31 in The Globe and Mail. Then, as it often goes when we write, my mind was asking, or rather pushing me, to go further and explore other issues related to the literary scene in Canada, and to a certain extent, also around the world. So here I go\u2014and I ask that you kindly hear me, consider the thoughts that come to my being, as I live and love, as I think and write and read myself and others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=961"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2115,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions\/2115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}