What is the future for the book outside Europe? Post-referendum thoughts from Kathleen Jones

Oh dear, the #B word. Brexit.  After the initial shock, I've been trying to think about how it's going to affect my particular trade, writing and selling books.

Our literary relationship with Europe has been a bit rocky in recent decades, partly because of the language barriers.  Much easier to look across the Atlantic to that powerhouse of writing and publishing, the USA and Canada, and further afield to other English-speaking cultures, than it is to look at our near neighbours.  As a result we know less about the French, German, Italians, Spanish, Scandinavians etc than we do about more distant cultures, and I'm not alone in wondering whether this has anything to do with the referendum result. If we don't read their books, we don't know our neighbours very well.  According to editor Meike Ziervogel, of Peirene Press, we need to engage more with 'the narrative of strangers'. After all, they're only strangers until we get to know them.

Meike was asked by the Society of Authors to think about the forthcoming referendum and how it might affect the exchange of literature between Europe and the UK.  Her thoughts are very interesting.  Basically, a society that reads together, stays together.

We need to read more European literature - we read less of it than at any other time in history.  Apart from a few Montalbanos, Umberto Eco, the occasional Elena Ferrante, Suite Francaise and some Nordic Noir, most of us would be hard put to name more than one or two contemporary big name literary authors from across the channel.  Meike should know, she publishes them.

Of course translation is the problem.  Meike has this to say:

"Recently an English novelist friend confessed to me that she doesn’t enjoy reading contemporary foreign literature in translation. She finds that, in comparison to English novels, translated books are often marked by impoverished language and stilted narrative. My friend is not alone. I have heard this argument from other readers before. Moreover, I can see where they are coming from. Because English possesses a larger amount of vocabulary than most other languages, our novels tend to be wordy. And because of the straightforwardness of the basic English syntax – subject, verb, object – English fiction writers are gifted in producing compelling, linear narratives. After all, the syntax influences how we organise reality.  It is therefore no surprise that a stark Finnish drama or a French novella where no word should be taken at face value, can present a challenge. . ."

Spending time in Italy and travelling around Europe I'm always ashamed at the number of Europeans reading books in English.  I don't read fluently in either French or Italian and stumble my way through books with the assistance of a dictionary, so if a book isn't available in translation I tend to leave it on the shelf.

Given how English Language-centred our reading is, Brexit probably won't affect what's in our bookshops much.  It's more how any decline in our economy will affect the publishing and book-selling industries.  The Big 5 already have financial problems.  As Indies we should avoid these hiccups. Each of us is a small business trading internationally and a weaker pound will make our books more attractive to buyers abroad.  As readers, books not published in the UK will become more expensive. Any downturn in the economy will also mean we sell less books at home, as people cut their spending. So, it's a mixed outlook.

George Orwell was positively prophetic when it came to political skullduggery

What I do lament is the opportunity to grow a closer relationship to European culture - their literature is rich and very different to the UK model taught on creative writing courses. We need that input if our own writing isn't to become inward-looking and boringly predictable. Many of our greatest and most innovative writers spent time in Europe, reading European literature and imbibing new ideas - DH Lawrence, Ezra Pound, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Byron, Shelley, Mary Shelley, WH Auden, Katherine Mansfield, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Nancy Mitford, Edith Wharton ....  these are just a few names off the top of my head.

I'm a Peirene Press reader - grateful for the opportunity to read some of the best of European literature in translation.  It's full of  experiment and new ideas, new perspectives.  I can recommend 'Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman' by Friedrich Christian Delius, 'The Brothers' by Finnish author Asko Sahlberg, and 'Mr Darwin's Gardener' by another wonderful Finnish author Kristina Carlson.  I would be very sad if Brexit means that this exchange of literary ideas across the channel becomes more difficult.  Already only a trickle, it could be easily blocked. We're not just writers, we're creative artists and creativity should be without boundaries. 

Meanwhile there's a burgeoning market in books on how to survive Brexit.  Never pass up an opportunity - Get writing!

Only one of many! 

Kathleen Jones is an novelist, biographer and poet publishing on both sides of the fence.  She can be found at www.kathleenjones.co.uk  blogging at A Writer's Life, on Twitter incognito as @kathyferber and wasting time on Facebook here.   Her latest book is the travel memoir of a life-changing trip to the Edge of the World, the islands of Haida Gwaii off the northern coast of British Columbia.