[LauraT]

In Greece, there doesn't seem to be a major fantasy writer, which I think is awful considering the literary history of Greece. Of course, I hardly speak the language yet, so what do I know? Still, I don't believe so. What I have found is that many popular English language fantasy books are translated into Greek. The first time I saw Greek editions (Tolkien, Rowling, Feist, Salvatore) at my local bookstore, I commented to the owner how nice it was that these books have been translated and that I had read most of them. I hadn't known before then if Greeks generally liked to read contemporary fantasy or not. The owner sneered at me and said that those books were for children. So I slunk out.

[Hopesfalltoashe]

Wow, It's a surprise to see a post by W.J. Maryson on this forum.
I was just about to add that I am currently reading through and enjoying Marysons work (in Dutch).

And in a few years keep an eye out for a debut series from the magnificent Belgian author,
me
Karl Stroobant.
:D
I'm receiving pretty good reviews...
from my friends
No really a few of them went nuts about a one page long bit I wrote.
And my best buddy has some talent as well, but because he read about every fantasy there is to read he thinks he can't be original anymore, but he actually has an interesting concept. And he won't let me steal it:(

[s271]

About the russian fantasy again - the market is huge in Russia. The books are often sold by street vendors on the street corners. New good names appear every year, and many of them are coming form thriving online self-publishing community - zhurnal.lib.ru.
Russian fantasy have some specific - there is a preference for dark fantasy, with ambigous heroes. There is a whole subgenere of Tolkieneske worlds but written forom the orcs point of view, often with good freedom-loving orcs and bad manipulative elves. Interesting that russian SF is not doing so well - hard SF practically does not exist.

[Maryson]

Is there any Swedish or Norwegian writer active here?

[estranghero]

Well, there's a small yet increasing market for fantasy and science-fiction here in the Philippines. I once talked to a small bookshop and the proprietor told me that they get mostly orders of SFF from the US.

On the writing front, the local SFF is taking baby steps with a number of speculative fiction anthologies, novels, and collections. So there's hope at this end of the world. :p

[JBI]

In more religeous parts of the world, some books are prohibitied (especially fantasy), also the idea of fantasy has been around in every nation for years upon years. There is plenty of fantasy in other countries. All the old folk stories we see in disney (well a lot of the classic ones) were originally from The Brothers Grimm in Germany. In Japan I know for a fact they have a large fantasy market, and in other parts of Asia, fantasy plays a major role in folk tales and myth. It is really the latin countries that lack in fantasy.

[FuzzBunneh]

Here in France the 'juvenile' label still seems to be quite widely applied to books that fall within the boundaries of fantasy and science-fiction. A lot of people I've spoken to seem to think escapism is all these books have to offer, and I must say I have a hard time not being evasive when I'm asked what the book I'm reading is about. Moreso than in English-speaking countries, I'd say.

Saw a comment here about our (legendary) pride in our cultural heritage.. not sure where that comes in, if it does at all - I'd say the proportion of people who think that genre fiction is an insult to literature and all things holy are pretty much the same here and across the pond ;)

Market's growing here; I think Peter Jackson's LoTR trilogy contributed to bringing fantasy to the forefront for a while. Tolkien's works don't enjoy the same cult-following here as they do in Anglo-Saxon countries.. a lot of the people I know who now read fantasy regularly were introduced to it by these films. Can't be a bad thing, eh?

I've noticed that books seem to get serialized here quite a lot; they turned Perdido Street Station into two books, and Robin Hobb's three trilogies (Liveship Traders, Tawny Man, Farseer) into 21 books.. not sure what it's due to; either publishers thinking the target market doesn't have the enough of an attention span to be able to wade through an 800-page book, or possibly for financial reasons related to the time it takes to translate a book.. someone working in the field might know more.

I must say.. book titles, names, etc sound insanely corny in French, compared to English. "King Robert" (AGoT) sounds quite bad.

[Mithfânion]

Hello Maryson

My short stories appear everywhere, also in anthologies in a.o. Germany, France and soon in the USA (The best of European SF - TOR, june 2007)

This collection sounds very interesting, do you have anymore info about it? Contributors, are the stories SF or Fantasy, or both?

I haven't heard anything about it yet.

[KatG]

We're delighted to have two sff authors from the greater world stage on the forums.

May I pose, that in our genre the traffic between English speaking countries and "the rest" often is a one-way-street? And that this doesn't always catch up with the quality of the stories?

The quality of most above mentioned writers can easily be compared to the good works coming from England, the USA and other English speaking countries?

Time to open up?
It would give worldwide fantasy writing and reading a boost and as I see it, we do need that!

One problem for the U.S., Britain, etc. has been getting the English translations done. It adds to the cost and since a lot of the sff market here is paperback, it becomes difficult to do. Plus, with a foreign author, you lose the advantage of at-home promotion. For a long time, these markets weren't very global -- it was assumed that readers were mostly not interested in foreign authors, even many English-speaking ones, but that's changing. The U.S. finally got around to regularly importing sff writers from Australia, for instance.

We have had some luck with some non-English countries -- the Japanese writers, for example. But it's going to be a slow process. Britain offers the best bet as an entry way, maybe, since they are part of the European Union.

It is interesting in seeing this thread resurrected how much has changed rapidly since it was started over a year ago. I'm hearing much more news of foreign authors, some of them doing sff, then I did then. It's nice to hear that sff may be growing in some non-English territories too.

[Maryson]

One problem for the U.S., Britain, etc. has been getting the English translations done. It adds to the cost and since a lot of the sff market here is paperback, it becomes difficult to do.

Well, every language has to cope with getting the translation done.
As I noticed that lots of US/UK publishers were not able or willing to dig into that, I had my novels translated to English myself and went out, to the Frankfurt Bookfair, through Europe (in my old car) and started shooting at publishers by mail. It delivered me good German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish publishers, it is going to deliver me an Italian and a Turkish publisher. I succeeded mainly because the editors themselves were able to read and judge my stuff. And I hope that also the quality of my novels adds to this.The foreign publishers translated/translate from Dutch, with the English translation as a sort of back-copy lying on the desk.
Since I've done this, more European writers act in the same way. To me their quality is beyond any doubt, so there will be a boost anyway.
I think that especially most of the US publishers have trouble to change their one-way-thinking (to get their American writer translated to Estonian or Swahili. I understand that, but I think that in those days, especially in those days, we all need to open up our borders for good stuff from abroad.

Plus, with a foreign author, you lose the advantage of at-home promotion.

In my query letter I always state that whenever the publisher would need my presence for promotionial events, I would come running. I will.
In fact I do think I will be published either in the UK or the USA within the forthcoming years, but I do notice the hesitations, that have nothing to do with the quality of the works of Europeans.

For a long time, these markets weren't very global -- it was assumed that readers were mostly not interested in foreign authors, even many English-speaking ones, but that's changing. The U.S. finally got around to regularly importing sff writers from Australia, for instance.

Which is in English, of course.:rolleyes: