Who Can Write Whose Story?

Salman Rushdie and other novelists are worried that young people's sensitivities are threatening to kill fiction as we know it. Should fiction be a "free place" as Toni Morrison puts it? Or should we create guidelines around who can tell whose story? Diving into this topic, we'll try our best to skirt the traditional culture war talking points and head instead for the heart of the matter. Why do we read novels? And how do publishers pick winners and losers? This is my first video. I'd like to make more. — Music — Honley’s Mountain - DEC17 (https://honleysmountain.bandcamp.com/album/engrave) Tom Fox - Memory in Time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waIXAeUCQps&list=PLkLJoBnYX7lzwlw0skJpKe7g19_scU38l&index=15 — Articles & Interviews — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfSg6H2j_dE) Lionel Shriver (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FklwcNKX8Ro) Lionel Shriver Defending Sombrero (https://newrepublic.com/article/144922/right-really-think-sombrero-just-straw-hat) Salman Rushdie in the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/23/salman-rushdie-allow-writers-to-create-characters-outside-of-their-own-experience) DeRay Mckesson (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g46OPWahSk) William Styron & Ossie Davis (with James Baldwin) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCkpiRM0G4g&ab_channel=MatthewSiegfried) Nicole from Noteworthy Fiction (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn6-VrlW3Cw&t=749s&ab_channel=NoteworthyFiction%28Nicole%29) Jeanine Cummins Book Tour (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdKFnFUpNIs) Myriam Gurba Tropics of Meta (https://tropicsofmeta.com/2019/12/12/pendeja-you-aint-steinbeck-my-bronca-with-fake-ass-social-justice-literature/) Myriam Gurba Democracy Now (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mebgmP-tc4E) Jeanine Cummins, Myriam Gurba, Sandra Cisneros, and Luis Alberto Urrea on NPR (https://www.npr.org/2020/01/29/800964001/digging-into-american-dirt) Alexander Chee on Writing the Other (https://www.vulture.com/2019/10/author-alexander-chee-on-his-advice-to-writers.html) Zadie Smith in Slate (https://slate.com/culture/2016/11/a-conversation-with-zadie-smith-about-cultural-appropriation-male-critics-and-how-trump-interests-her-novelistically.html) Hernan Diaz on Service95 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRAKWYpOfcs&ab_channel=Service95) Roxane Gay on The Argument podcast (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/opinion/who-can-write-about-what.html) Neil Pasricha Interview with Jonathan Franzen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5_N3DbbXAY&t=1562s&ab_channel=NeilPasricha) Harold Bloom on Charlie Rose (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVWiwd0P0c0&t=520s&ab_channel=ManufacturingIntellect) Hanya Yanagihara (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0cj3x2v) Nisi Shawl & Cynthia Ward: Writing The Other (https://writingtheother.com/the-book/) T.C. Boyle and Joyce Carol Oates at the New Yorker Festival (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv3vgUSHmvg&ab_channel=TheNewYorker) Esmeralda Bermudez and Jeanine Cummins on NPR (https://www.npr.org/2020/01/24/798894249/latinx-critics-speak-out-against-american-dirt-jeanine-cummins-responds) Zadie Smith defends fiction in the New York Review of Books (https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/10/24/zadie-smith-in-defense-of-fiction/) Angelique Kidjo calls Remain in Light "African Music" (https://www.npr.org/2018/05/31/615243331/first-listen-angelique-kidjo-remain-in-light) Otessa Moshfegh on Brett Easton Ellis’ podcast (https://www.patreon.com/posts/b-e-e-podcast-10-21822014) Silvia Moreno Garcia (https://sujatamassey.com/mexican-gothic-talking-with-silvia-moreno-garcia/) Toni Morrison on Charlie Rose (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSLbTtMiEzY&ab_channel=ManufacturingIntellect) Rebecca F. Kuang (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joywWvgJmRo&ab_channel=SydneyOperaHouse) Oprah (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYwxT3oFAiY&t=31s&ab_channel=GoodMorningAmerica) 00:00 Are Young People Murdering Fiction? 1:36 Rushdie's Vision of Authorial Freedom 5:51 American Dirt 9:43 Writing the Other 14:44 A Question of Quality? 20:50 The Realism Trap 23:32 Cultural Appropriation 28:26 Marginalized Creators 30:02 Publishers as Gatekeepers 34:21 What Fiction Can Do