Expat Lit

The redoubtable Neil "Ratatouille" Ayers dropped a note on the Comment trail steering me to this Times Online article about folks who can't get published in their home country. I knew about John Knowles, James Purdy, and Carol O'Connell going to the UK to get published, but I didn't realize there were very successful writers on both sides of the pond who continue to be published everywhere except in their home country.

It turns out not to be a one-way street, either; there are Brits who are only popular in the US, or France, and one Russian who lives and publishes in France but has been dead weight back in Russia.

In the consulting business, they say that how much respect you are accorded during a speech is directly proportional to the miles you traveled to give the talk. I guess there's something similar at work here.

So, if you have trouble getting pubbed at home, go far foreign. It might be just what you need. (Or so says David "Big in Curacao" Isaak.)