Jetse de Vries

Q-1.

What country/ethnicity/culture do you identify yourself with?

 

A-1.

​

I was born, and still live, in The Netherlands. So I identify as Dutch. I’m a white male, atheist and culturally I identify myself as a tolerant Dutchman in favour of multiculturalism.​

​​

Q-2.
 

SF/F/Horror/Slipstream genre has always been dominated by Anglo-American language. Is Anglo-American genre fiction is your major influence?
 

A-2.

​

One of my major influences. Back when I finished high school Dutch literature was my biggest (reading) influence, but through my father――who travelled the world extensively――I came into contact with science fiction. Back in the 80s much more English SF was translated into Dutch, so I read mostly Anglo-American SF alongside a few Dutch works. After I started travelling a lot myself (for the day job), I switched to reading in English because less and less SF was being translated into Dutch, and English paperbacks were much cheaper than Dutch ones.

​​

Q-3.
 

Give us the ratio of your reading of Anglo-American fiction against your own or non-English literature. Currently.
 

A-3.

​

About 90 to 10. I’m sorry: I read almost exclusively English (even if some of it is translated). For genre fiction I am extremely internationally oriented, and the English versions are one of the most easily available. Also, more international fiction, I suspect, is translated into English than in most other languages (with the possible exception of Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, I would guess). That is to say: precious little is translated to Dutch, so I get a better view of world SF when reading English rather than Dutch.

​

Be that as it may, I still read predominantly Anglo-American fiction: possibly a habit I may need to break (or at least lessen).

​​

Q-4.
 

To our dismay, a lot of so called World things are actually American ones. From Baseball's World series to our genre's Worldcon (almost) or World Fantasy Awards. How can we correct it to its real structure, into the real chaotic world?
 

A-4.

​

Not to mention the idiocy of calling the most popular sport in the world ‘soccer’, while it is――of course――football (in that totally wrongly named sport ‘American football’ the ball is played by the foot for, at best, five seconds in a full game. ‘American rugby’ would be much more appropriate).

​

How to change this: either organise a truly international SF convention (I think the Eurocons are already an example of this, even if they’re not world-wide), or change WorldCon and World Fantasy from within. The latter is already happening, even if slowly. For example, through the World SF Blog there was a Peerbacker fundraiser called “World SF Travel Fund”. It received enough funds to buy air tickets for Philippine author and all-round genre enthusiast Charles Tan to visit the San Diego World Fantasy last year, and this year Swedish writers Karin Tidbeck and Nene Ormes will be travelling to World Fantasy in Toronto.

​

Apart from the World SF Blog (originally set up by Lavie Tidhar), the recently launched International Speculative Fiction website is doing much to get truly international specific writers to the attention of the English language world. Then there people such as Ann & Jeff VanderMeer who have been doing their damnedest to include non-English language authors in several of their projects (such as the massive The Weird, The Steampunk Bible, and their Best American Fantasy series) and Cheryl Morgan who launched the Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Awards. In Germany, Michael Iwoleit has resurrected Inter Nova. Last but certainly not least are Haikosoru’s releases of translated Japanese SF/F works. I’m sure I am missing several more of such projects and/or publishers.

​

So things are definitely happening, even if not as fast as one would hope, and even if these efforts are not as visible to the public eye as one would like.

​
Q-5.

Yet, it's true that we're culturally much influenced by American pop culture. Haruki Murakami cannot write like he does now without his American literature and Jazz influence. Is it the same for your case? Can you imagine you write without that influence at all?
 

A-5.

​

I like to see myself as a citizen of the world: I have travelled very extensively (have been to over fifty countries on six continents), so I hope I have been influenced by much more than just American pop culture.

​

While indeed several of my stories are set in the USA, I also have stories set in the UK, Ireland and Australia (other English language countries) and Spain, The Netherlands, Russia, the Caribbean at large, Zaire, Brazil, and indeed Japan (I have been to several places there: Nagasaki though the longest and the most often).

​​

Q-6.
 

But these days a lot of young writers and editors work in English language and for American market. Do you hold any grudge against working like this? Or is it a natural reaction to that influence?
 

A-6.

​

I started writing in English (the editorial work followed much later) because the market was (is) much bigger. The Dutch market for Dutch language science fiction is small, and even smaller for Dutch language SF short stories (also, importantly, no paying markets for Dutch language SF short stories).

​

So I certainly hold no grudge against that: I’ve voluntarily started doing that myself. Because there were many more markets to send your story to (and most of them paying ones), not necessarily only American ones (English, Canadian, Irish, Australian). So you have a better chance of selling your story (more markets) and then also more people might be reading your work.

​

It would be fantastic if computer programs like Babelfish or Google Translate could accurately translate fiction (or non-fiction: anything). But that won’t be happening anytime soon. I strongly suspect that when a computer program can translate a foreign work just as good (or better) than an experienced, human translator, we are looking at something eerily close to Artificial Intelligence. And that will open a whole new Pandora’s Box of possibilities.

​​

Q-7.
 

If and when you have to write in English, do you do that to English-American readers, or to the global readers?
 

A-7.
 

As I already indicated in my previous answer, I write all my fiction directly in English. Since I live so close to the UK, and since I’ve been part of the Interzone editorial team for over four years, I try to write British English (as opposed to American English: there are subtle differences). But that is just the type of English.

​

I do try to aim my stories at a global audience, which is a double-edged sword: on the one hand more non-Anglo-American people might enjoy the story, while on the other hand Anglo-American editors――who see it first――might reject it because it’s not familiar enough to their core reading audience. Then again, I do see that a lot of online SF magazines are gathering an increasingly international readership, so I think things are definitely changing for the better.

​​

Q-8.

Is there any works or writers from your local scene you can sincerely recommend to the world readers? And why do you recommend them? Is it because they have no equivalent works or writers in Anglo-American scene? Or is it because they perfectly fit there and have many things in common that we should share? Which do you think is important, originality, or affinity?
 

A-8.
 

To be frank, I’m not so well informed about the Dutch SF/fantasy scene, since I aim my efforts world-wide. Having said that, I do recommend both Paul Evanby and Rochita Loenen-Ruiz (both published in the same Interzone issue, coincidentally) as up-and-coming Dutch writers (note: Rochita is originally from The Philippines but married a Dutchman and now lives in The Netherlands).

​

While Paul Evanby writes both SF and fantasy stories set around the world (I’ve read some short stories set in China, Morocco, Caribbean), and his two main novels De Scrypturist and De Vloedvormer are set in a fantasy setting, I do think a lot of his work has a very strong Dutch affinity.

​

I haven’t quite read enough of Rochita Loenen-Ruiz’s stories, I’m sorry to say. She writes much more fantasy and plain ‘weird fiction’ rather than SF, and her Philippine heritage shines through in a lot of her fiction.

​

Thereby, I would say that Paul and Rochita both use their affinity in an original way. Or, in other words, I don’t think that affinity and originality need to be separate entities: used right they can be both, interacting with each other and becoming more than the sum of their parts.

​​

Q-9.
 

Have you ever read and liked any Japanese works, in and out of our genre? What aspect of it attracted you?
 

A-9.
 

Last Japanese works I read were Usurper of The Sun by Housuke Nojiri and Zoo by Otsuichi (both English translations from Haikasoru: I think Nick Mamatas is doing great work there). I was attracted by the hard SF extrapolations of Usurper of The Sun, and by the haunted visions of dark fantasy in modern day Japan of Zoo.

​

Q-10.
 

Could you please explain what you do to promote foreign literature to your readers or your own works to foreign readers?
 

A-10.

​

Back when I edited Shine (an anthology of near-future, optimistic SF), I made a concerted effort to include writers from all over the world. While I did not succeed in that as much as I had hoped, the anthology had seven American, three Canadian (one who lives in South Korea), three English (one who had lived in The Netherlands for a very long time), one French, one Israeli, one Mexican (who now lives in Canada) and one Brazilian writer.

​

Also, on the Shine anthology website I ran a series of “Optimistic literature around the World, and SF in particular”. It ran only 6 posts, and included Ukraine, The Philippines, South Korea, Anime (OK: this is mostly Japanese), Brazil and Israel. At the time, unfortunately, while I queried many other people, these were the ones coming forward with articles.

​

Personally, I’ve stopped blogging for over a year, so the only way right now I’m promoting the few stories of me that have recently been getting published (“Perfect World”, “Solitude, Quietude. Vastitude”――first story I wrote set in my home town――and “Connoisseurs of the Eccentric”――Japanese and African protagonists) only via Twitter and Facebook, hoping my international followers will be interested. Let’s just say I’ve had a burnout year from SF, and am slowly returning to it.