Literature Remains a White Male Thing

I think even if you look at literature on a global perspective, White (or mostly-White) men dominate. If you look at Latin American literature, a lot of it is very good, but the writers are mostly White-looking males.

Yes, there are many fine women writers, most of whom are White. Even in Latin America, the woman writers tend to be Whiter. However, I still think that men dominate literature, even if women are doing very well and there are now many fine female writers. In fact, there may be as many female novelists as male novelists. Quite a few women are writing short stories and female poets are not rare. But it seems that the very best of the White novelists are still male.

There are superb female novelists, but they are outnumbered by the males. However, let us keep in mind that there has been a tradition of excellent White female poets for over a century now (Elizabeth Browning, H.D., Mina Loy, Emily Dickinson, Dorothy Parker, Katharine Anne Porter, Edna St. Vincent Millay – a distant relative!, Amy Lowell, and of course Gertrude Stein ).

In fact, I’m not entirely sure that fine White male poets are being the female poets in terms of numbers. Surely some of the finest White poets of the modern era were women (Sylvia Path, Margaret Atwood, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore, Louise Glick)

African literature is a new thing, and it can be quite good, but there’s not much of it. Chinua Achebe (Things Fall Apart) is excellent, and he’s not the only one. Here males tend to dominate and write the best material. However, there are a few fine female writers here and there.

Jews are lumped in with White men whether they like it or not.

Black Americans have surely produced some fine writers (Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man – and Zora Neale Huston – Their Eyes Were Watching God), but there have not been many of them. There are still more great Black male novelists than female novelists, but see Huston above for a great Black woman writer.

There have been a few good Caribbean writers like Jean Rhys (Wide Sargasso Sea), but they are few in number. There are probably more good male writers there, but see Rhys above for a great female novelist.

Arab literature seems to be a new thing, but there are only a few good Arab writers. Naguib Mafouz is one of them (Cairo Trilogy). So was Gassan Kanafani, the Palestinian. Arab female writers seem to be fairly rare.

There have not been many excellent writers coming out of India. I believe there may be a few. Naranyan is one. No good writing has come out of Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Nepal to my knowledge.

Afghanistan, Iran, and the Stans have not produced much great literature other than Rumi in Iran of course, though I do like the new Afghan writer Khaled Housseni (The Kite Runner). Reading Lolita in Tehran by an Iranian woman writer was a good book. Once again, I think Islam seriously stunts artistic production, especially literature. Look at how many writers from Muslim countries get attacked. People even try to murder them see Rushdie and Mahfouz. However, the novel is probably a new form in the Arab World.

There has been little great literature coming out of SE Asia, Indonesia, and the Philippines other than Jose Rizal. Basically a literary wasteland. I’m not aware of any good literature coming out of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, or the Philippines with the  exception of Rizal of course. On the other hand, the novel, short story, and poem are all pretty new.

Chinese literature in terms of the modern novel is a new thing but some of the older, very long epics were also very good and seemed to predate the modern picaresque. Some very good writers are coming out of China, but there are only a few of them. Mo Yan (Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out) and Yian Lianke (Hard as Water) are two of them. Both are men. I’m not aware of any good female writers out of China. However, the modern novel is a new form in China and the writers there are just trying it out.

Japanese literature is fairly new, but they have been writing for a century. Some excellent writers, the finest of the 20th Century, have come out of Japan, but there are not a large number of them. Haruki Murakami (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle) is surely one of them. I think that per capita their production of fine writers is below that of Whites, but this is one non-White group that is doing pretty well. However, they started exploring the novel and short story over a century ago. It is interesting that there are a few excellent Japanese female novelists, but they seem to be outnumbered by men.

There is a pretty decent amount of good literature coming out of South Korea, but I’m not sure if the numbers line up with White writers. The work is mostly novels and the writers are mostly men.

Mongolian literature is nil. There are no good Siberian writers.

There have not been many good Amerindian writers. Louise Erdrich (Blood Medicine) is one of them. Nor have there been many in Latin America.

Hispanic Americans have not produced much good lit. John Rechy (Bodies and Souls) is the only one who comes to find. Maybe Julia Alvarez (How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents)? It tends to get way too caught up in SJW BS.

Very little if any good literature has come of the Polynesian, Melanesian, or Micronesian islands.

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