Writing POC when you are not
Intersectionality and the cautionary tale of Martin Walser
I have suffered discrimination as a Queer person. I have suffered workplace discrimination as a woman. But I am still white and northern European. My dear friend “Habibi” (yes I changed her name) is Arabic and Palestinian, a Person-of-Colour (POC). Habibi is stopped by the undercover ticket checkers every single time she boards the subway or tram. Me? Never. (In many central European cities you buy public transport tickets on an honor system, there are no turnstiles.) Here is intersectionality at work: I am LGBTQIA and female, but I am “white”. Habibi is straight, female, and “read” as nonwhite. You don’t know what intersectionality is? You should. (You can read a good, quick summary here. There is even a simple Venn diagram explaining it.)
Nonfiction writers have it easy. I know, I’ve been mainly a nonfiction writer for most of my adult life, mostly hard science topics. Easy. I don’t need any personal experience with AI, statistics, or fluid mechanics to write on these subjects. I do my research and analysis, subject it to peer review, edit as needed, and publish. You can tell straightaway though that nonfiction is not where my heart lies: I write/wrote nonfiction under a pseudonym. My fiction and essays are under my real name (as are all my posts here).
In my fiction I am 100% comfortable writing a LGBTQIA character, because I am one. (LGBTQIA does not roll off the tongue though; like many people in the community I’ve taken to using the term “Queer” as a kind of shorthand). Ibid “white” women characters. I have plenty of experience with white men, no problem writing them, even though they mostly turn out to be “bad guy” characters. But can I write a character like Habibi? Should I? Is it even appropriate? I have no personal experience growing up as a woman of colour in a conservative Middle Eastern country who is a member of a minority group in that country, an oppressed minority within an oppressed minority.
Well? If I didn’t know Habibi so well, I would say no way, I am unqualified to write a character like hers. But because I do know her and a few of her poignant experiences vicariously, I’ll give it a qualified “yes”. I feel I can write a character like her (though I haven’t yet) with understanding and compassion, maybe not a main character, or if she were to be a main character, her background would be subsidiary to her role in the story.
Bollocks. That was confusing. Let me explain with an example. In my current manuscript one of my main characters, “V”, is Maori. I spent a winter in New Zealand and got to know several Maori people who taught me something of their culture and background. V’s own Maori background comes out in her story, it very much informs who she is, but her role in my book has little to do with her being Maori and a Person of Colour. But could I ever write a book like Witi Ihimaera’s masterpiece, Whale Rider? Never. It would be wrong. Even if I lived among Maori people for thirty years? Not even then. Likewise I cannot and should not write a book about growing up as a POC in North Philly, or as an indigenous American on the Pine Ridge reservation. Same reason I would and should never have dreadlocks (other than I don’t have the hair for it).
And now, the kind of weird counter argument. Enter the case of Martin Walser.
Never heard of Martin Walser? Don’t feel badly, most Germans under 40 haven’t heard of him either. Martin Walser is — was — hailed as Germany’s most influential writer of the 20th Century. Walser is prolific, he’s published over 100 essays and books. I say “is” because he is still going strong at 94. Walser is not a sympathetic person, either. He has strong opinions and voices them. He has been married to the same woman since 1950, but could hardly be described as a faithful husband. He and his wife have always had an open relationship, though his wife never took the opportunity to be as “open” as he has. À la Picasso, Walser typically ditches his wife and moves out for an extended period to write, shacking up with much younger “muse” for inspiration. Children, one of whom is a the well known journalist and publisher Jakob Augenstein, have sometimes resulted from his muse-encounters. A few years ago I read a pre-publication copy of an intimate biography of Walser, and I am still not sure if I like him or detest him as a person. But while he has written some crap, much of his opus is brilliant. I’d like to recommend a few titles, but you’d better know German if you want to read Walser. Until a couple of years ago, not a single one of his works has appeared in English translation since 1998.
It is a complicated story, but the gist of it goes back to a speech Walser gave, the famous/infamous Paulskirchenrede of 1998. Walser was being awarded the German Book Publisher’s Peace Prize. He received a standing ovation, except for one single person, the most influential literary critic in Germany at the time, Marcel Reich-Ranicki. Reich-Ranicki was Jewish, and he was Martin Walser’s best friend. To Walser’s shock, Reich-Ranicki lashed out at Walser for not including Jewish characters in his works, and for not writing about the Holocaust. Walser countered that he had no personal experience growing up Jewish, nor any personal encounter with the Holocaust. Walser had been a regular army soldier in World War 2 (never a Nazi or any kind of Nazi supporter).
Walser said he was unqualified to write a Jewish character, or about the Holocaust, and that it would not even be appropriate for him to do so. Nonetheless, Walser was finished. His books were removed from required reading lists across the German speaking world. No more television interviews. And no English-language publisher would touch his stuff. No more translations into English, period, for the next 22 years. Walser was summarily blacklisted. The literary equivalent of “box office poison”.
Nonfiction writers do have it easy.
