Science Fiction from the (so-called) Third World (WisCon 30 Panel)

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Panelists

Nalo Hopkinson (moderator), Nnedi Nkemdili Okorafor-Mbachu, Sheree Renée Thomas, Andrea Hairston

Works Cited

Other Works (SRT/NNOM)

Transcript Notes

Original transcript by Laura Quilter ... please correct, fill in, add comments 

This is a draft of a transcript. Ellipses (...) indicate missing text; 
question marks (?) indicate unknown speakers; 
and there could be plenty of unmarked errors. 
Other attendees are encouraged to incorporate their own 
notes and descriptions of actions (applause, laughter, etc.) into the transcript.  
External links, recordings, and the like can also be linked.


... (FIRST 3O MINUTES OF THIS PANEL MISSING!!!) - panelists introduced themselves, discussed some writers, discussed Alejo Carpentier's 'the marvelous real', Walter Mosley's recent comments at the National Black Writers Conference @ Medgar Evers College on conservative readers, 'literature' vs. 'genre' snobbery, etc...


SRT:

  • not enough translation in the US
  • editing 3rd volume of dark matter on Africa
  • let's put in this in perspective. places like Africa and India - HUGE. It's not like what it appears on the map. You spend two months in India and you've only seen three cities! Massive cultures and languages
  • have to find work. some of it is not in native languages but written in other languages; e.g., malagasy in madagascar, some written in german, french. story about james bond kind of saviour set in a pan-african future where economy is very different; some of this sf/f is not in english; in french. challenge of finding these works, getting them translated, and then seeing what they have to say about the world. 2 things going on - finding works in english, finding works in other languages. communications with other authors in other languages. conversations with contemporary writers and scholars who, once you explain what you mean by 'science fiction and fantasy,' may introduce you to their contemporaries and colleagues

NH: translation is not word for word. look at me i'm a big black man; in french that translates to 'fat black man' which he was but the meaning is quite different.

audience: problem in india, people don't want to write in english the language of colonizers, but they have 11 languages of their own. views?

NNOM: complex thing. would it be better for them to write in english as opposed to their native tongue. it's a complex thing. i wish there was a language other than the language of their colonizer.

AH: if that's a problem you can find a language - or again i think we need to become multilingual. not so readership can be all in one language - but we need to have more translators so that this problem is not so great. there are 11 languages, 11 different ways of seeing the world, that's bountiful, not a problem. wow we need to have communities without us all speaking the same language

NNOM: but if they had all these 11 different people - if they had to do an anthology in one year what would they do.

SRT: that's the thing, you don't do it in a year. if you really care, you give it the time it deserves, you honor it. that's the process.

AH: find another language, the one you want, it doesn't have to be the language of the colonizer, it's what you pick and what you learn. in europe everybody speaks english.

audience: india has a language -- sanskrit

audience - it's labeled as fantasy if it's not judeo-christian belief system why is da vinci code not marketed as fantasy - it's fantasy. why not marketed that way

nalo: some would disagree with you

audience: late mack reynolds did a series of novels in which members of african diaspora doing development work for english/french excolonials told all their respective lords & masters, drop dead; everybody use esperanto as the pan-african language; and developed a pan-african revolution. did five or six or eight - ? based on these premises. esperanto with its flaws is not the language of any of the former colonizers. didn't have political burdens that swahili had and so on. audience: fascinated with alejo carpentier's original meaning of 'the marvelous real' later mistranslated to 'magical realism.' as a non-academic my understanding of the term as used in western literature is i'm going to write a piece of fiction, stick a non-scientific miraculous event in it, explain it, and if it's explained it's fantasy or sf and if it's not explained it's magic realism, a miracle.

  • SRT: why do i have to explain it if it's part of the original culture, why should i have to turn around and have an 'as you know bob' when it's part of the culture?
  • aud: but to me that's fantasy
  • SRT: to me that's real

audience: speaking of translation / africa. angelica gorodischer also on a panel and listed many writers. cosmos latinos - a lot of those writers she mentions are translated in that volume.

SRT: translators are very organized - free-lancers waiting for work. i know one in san francisco alone who works w/ random house & other places but he's looking for work. he's fluent in spanish, translates well-known writers. i had one international residency experience, only american there, what is the south african book that won the nobel prize a couple of years ago - john coetzee - i met his translator; he was excited because he got the news that his translation from dutch to english won; and the whole conversation was that there was so many people who have great work and would love to have their work translated, but it's not a reciprocity; and that's a specific publishing issue in the market that affects how we as readers get access to these works.

AH- in the academy there are lots of people who love to do this but don't know of the work and then have to worry about whether it would look good on resume.

audience: i'm hearing question that science fiction is valued - term third world - i question it - when i look at india i look for reasons why i see eleemnts in language et cand i know in my heart that's not full reason why they are living ... language when it changes, when people migrated and how far they moved before language changed, and what i learned from is language changes when there's something in common b/w those people that is not there with others. 11 languages - i hear that there are riches and wealth that i don't have access to. so still the question of science fiction what is it what does it mean and does it have a meaning in those languages and communities that have their own languages and meanings. magic realism is just a marketing niche term. so what does science fiction mean across the 12 languages of india in the communities where they're writing it b/c that's where it will have a value to others. so where is the piece common to us all that i will be motivated to absorb.

jeanine - i came across magical realism before i knew the term - it didn't strike me as fantasatic - strikes me as a presumption for degree of rationalism - in all these stories of history, things that people don't offer explanation for like elves fairies etc b/c you're supposed to know what they are. readers are now expecting authors to write to their cultural lives instead of inviting readrs to step out of their experience into another. that's supposed to be at the heart of speculative fiction.

nalo: third one and then - yes

audience: try to keep it simple & not convoluted b/c a lot of things evolved that i want to ask about. mainly that we're talking about dominant culture and first world and a lot of these things are euphemisms for one another and -- the way the northern hemisphere is being developed right now. and the way it isn't in southern hemisphere - aforegone conclusion taht southern hemisphere is going to fall apart. i don't see enough hope / imagination to that other than screaming enclaves of progressive people trying to think about things differently but when there's no money difficult to see how that could be. so i worry that survival of people fm anywhere in southern hemiphsere or poor folks in northern hemisphere becomes dependent on idea that only thru diaspora can survival happen and only shooting an arrow thru culture can connection e made and we're talking about translation & what can be made available thru that or not. life or death ... existing diversity, b/c diversity keeps shifting and moving forward further. i want to know from all of you as you prepared for this panel & this give & take question of how can 3rd world writers impact sf and how can sf make a difference in 3rd world countries or members of people who consider themselves part of 3rd world cultures / countries / identities what do you guys think what is the role of sf in terms of social justice/action. is it that the literary community is for all its great things inherently, the deep stuff of racism is so thick that breaking past that - is it possible; if it were possible, how; what's the call to arms & is there one.

SRT: i'm going to be perfectly honest that i don't know what you just said but will try to answer two of the things I thought I heard from you. 1) what can sf or 'marvelous realism' do for the 3rd world. one it can contribute to our recordkeeping and help us understand the world better. not all 3rd world writers may be interested in that project. some don't want to educate you but some want to tell their own story. but it can enrich all of us, lift all our art & understanding & thinking about the world. 2) their work just contributes to the sense of wonder. i personally am bored w/ certain tropes. you can tell the same story 50 times and a new writer brings their essence to the story & makes you feel it all differently. but it will contribute to the whole sense of wonder. why we are here and love science fiction it's not all just about social justice. people i know who read it are looking for that hit. they are contributing just we're not necessarily plugged into that process. they don't need our permission to create it. i'm not saying that's what you're saying that's what i wanted to get out there.

AH: imagine agency. Silas Siakor. he's a liberian activist who works for rainforests helped to topple charles taylor - we can imagine agency from people we didn't imagine it from before. people having amazing experiences being full human beings.

nnedi: problem of label of magical realism - it's a load of [crowd laughter] it's got to go. i don't believe magical realism is any different from fantasy, i don't. i've read plenty and they're all fantasy to me and i don'tn see anything wrong with it and it doesn't take anything away from authors. in terms of sales and marketing categories - but the problem w/ label of magical realism for me as writer & my own experience is for epopele who aren't automatic readers of f/sf it turns us away from writing that. and when i started writing i was naturally inclined to writing things w/ weird things going on; it's just how iw as inclined. and my profs would veer me away from that; it's bad fiction to write things like fantasy & sf so i ended up turning to magical realism and they were fine with that.

AH: i'm sorry shoot those professors.

nnedi: category is a problem in that area. eventually i ended up just saying 'f it' and writing fantasy . i eventually found and started reading f/sf and this is waht i want to do. but that label of magical realism at least w/ the african writers i know it keeps them from even thinking of writing fantasy & science fiction b/c they know all the authors who write magical realism stuff and they're given lots of respect etc. and get residencies etc.

audience cynthia - writing about experience of being colonized from perspective of the colonized people

commentator - magical realism; it seems that what would make magical realism different from fantasy is that it's realism, pretty classic realism, but it employs elements that don't fit w/in ... a bunch of authors from czeck and former soviet union etc. who also have had similar elements - just bizarre w/ a bizarre sense of humor. one more thing, speaking of third world. i think it's a bit too simplistic to speak of it in terms of continents - b/c each state no matter where it ranges in economic scale of who's the most rich and most poor ... lots of pressure to produce social realism. the dullest possible literature.

cheryl - thing about labels is it's all about controlling languages. first world is europe, 2d world is america,

aud: taking romance, magical realism -

AH: pearl cleage, toni morrison ... in terms of cultural appropriation i think you just need to have more writers, writing these stories so their stories are known as well as the others. i hear the same tropes all the time ... suspicious and hostile rather than open. lots of wonderful playwrights. wonderful movie 'bedouin hacker'.

aud: i speak out of pure simple greed. i have seen really good fiction out of the third world written by american writers. some of it has problems especially old stuff. but lately i've seen american writers doing really good stuff. my thing is that there is a crapload of really good stuff out there and i want to see it. i attended a panel like this at worldcon in boston a couple of years ago and [[? she mentioned that #1 short fiction sf magazine int he world is in chinese. i want to read this. my comment is pure greed. somebody, somebody,

aud: we've been talking about reading & writing. i'm doing work now around a place in latin america. the literacy rate is only about 25%. this is of course very much class-based, if you're upper-class 95% of people read and middle class it goes down. and of course the country's changed. there's a rich 7 vibrant culture that comes mostly out of middle class. it's not a culture of - singers, improvisers on the street. it's a culture, music and of sculpture, and i'm wondering if multiculturalism of this sort is or ought to be multimediasm.

AH - that's a really good topic or issue. it may think about something that Ngugi wa Thiong'o is coming out a - book published in kenya in installments - 900 pages - each book eh sold, and it sold really well there in kenya; each book eh sold is performed to multiple people - so each book gets to at least 20 people. there's a whole performance tradition so his books - it's a storytelling tradition and he's from an oral culture - and it's translated - so i perform it in my language and you perform it in your language etc. - he was jailed for doing plays like that and was run out of the country for doing plays like that. ... strong set of people going off & doing that in nigeria, also in south africa. ... two actors, performed it all over, literally, came to amherst mass - they performed it, and then everyone knew about it. so it got beyond literacy, beyond the cultural barriers of language.

nnedi - one of his characters was so popular and well-known that government put out a warrant.

janice - really quick comments i hope. first as someone who wants to read chinese magazines, i'm also interested in this too. there' putting together a conference in chungdu just before worldcon 2007 b/c we could combine those 2 things so talk to me. 2d thing - i get disturbted when i hear people ask what do you want us to do b/c it's not their problem it's our problem. i like to remember bell hooks, we have our own brains, we should start figuring out what we want from these fascinating rich cultures and doing it in a way that accepts the beauty of it and enriches us. b/c i don't know about you but i'm tired of trying to make western culture work. thank you. hope that was short enough.

SRT: would you mind if i just bullet things that came up & give you a list?

  1. only about 5 or 6 years ago Haiti annnounced Kreyol as its national language; after 200 yrs...
  2. who knows name of william shatner movie w/ esperanto? / incubus
  3. recently saw film called code 46 w/ tim robbins also imagined future w/ polyglot int'l language so i don't know what it was; very interesting; very common; world was diverse but divided into areas based on genetics
  4. music is the intl language; i know how cheesy that sounds but really a lot of things, a lot of problems we have on the text, somehow they're not communciated thru the music - and - music i just wanted to say that; exmaple hiphop; you can introduce different ideas, science fictional ideas in music that don't get the same critique; i've seen diff artists intro very sf ideals into their music & its being listened to in 3rd world & who knows what effect is
  5. join carl brandon society & list, we share info on that on the regular
  6. i'm trying to connect w/ more academics & address issue that nnedi mentioned about labeling; if i say i'm looking for sf works by african writers, they look at you oddly, they don't know any; but then if you say, i'm looking for works that do this that and the other - and then they say ohhhh - you mean.....semantics
  7. finally, read a book, read a goddamn book

AH: read a book, read a book, read a motherfucking book

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