by Nisi Shawl
The bibliography at the end of this essay contains a few suggestions for further reading, among them examples of successful transcultural writing. As to specific techniques I’d recommend for those who want to write this sort of thing, there’s some overlap with the previous essay “Beautiful Strangers: Transracial Writing for the Sincere,” (75) wherein I enumerate ways to create believable characters of a race other than the author’s.
However, members of the same race can frequently come from different cultures, as any North American black who travels in Africa can attest. To a certain extent, members of different races can come from the same culture as well. Culture is both more real and robust than race (a classification once supposed to be biological in nature and now revealed as a social construct), and more ephemeral and fragile: accusations of cultural theft are far more common than accusations of the appropriation of another’s race. The sets overlap but aren’t identical.
When at all plausible, the best point of view from which to recount a transcultural tale is one that in some way mimics the tale-teller’s position vis-à-vis the culture: that of an alien. The correspondence need not be exact. The pov character need not be the author somehow transported to the story’s setting. Such a character’s distancing can come from other factors. Perhaps they’ve been raised by someone reluctant or unable to share cultural knowledge, as in Due’s The Good House. Perhaps they’re a member of a racial minority within a non-Western culture, who yet identifies with that culture, as does Chung Mae, ethnic Chinese heroine of Geoff Ryman’s Air, which is set in the mountains of Karzistan. Or they may have been isolated by a disaster or the act of a colonizing power. And of course, the narrator or pov need not be the story’s protagonist.
(A caveat: having a character merely incorporate the author’s reaction to that character’s own culture will not give you the sort of perspective I’m talking about here. In fact, it will almost always detract from the story’s verisimilitude.)
Two recent novels explore how African traditions underpin that most European of myths, the search for the Holy Grail. In Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad, new Canadian writer Minister Faust uses the point of view of the descendants of East African immigrants, divided by centuries and continents from the relevant legacy: the wisdom of Osiris. Alex Irvine, a white writer from the US, gives us multiple narrators in One King, One Soldier. All these are also white, but one is possessed by the spirit of a black man, so that while he cannot speak with this man’s voice it haunts and inhabits him as he journeys on foot up the Congo.
Additionally, portraying a culture calls for paying attention to setting, dialogue, action, and a host of other elements above and beyond character. While I won’t go into these to the same extent that I’ve looked at character, I can offer some helpful questions:
Is your adopted milieu a “frozen culture”—one that looks like a picture postcard from an exotic locale, hermetically sealed off from developing technologies, the influences of other cultures, even climatic and geological forces? In a way, these settings are just further instances of the same bad writing that fills bookstore shelves with fantasies set in never-ending Middle Ages, but they can exert regrettable influence on how we view current non-Western cultures and their members.
In an effort to create an original setting, have you adopted a “mix-and-match” approach, including some cultural elements while leaving others on the cutting room floor as irrelevant or distasteful? Be aware that material you reject may seem crucial to members or descendants of that culture and may render what you retain inexplicable to them—and to other readers.
Is the culture you’re portraying intrinsic to the story, or is it only there to fancy up your depiction of events that might have taken place anywhere, at anytime? Just as some transracial characters come across as no more than color-tinted versions of the author’s racial identity, some transcultural settings seem to be no more than the author’s home ground with a few representative foreign props scattered around. Science fiction and fantasy stories in which things of a speculative or fantastic nature are tangential to what happens are usually unsatisfying, and an analogy can be drawn from this to the appearance of cultural details in transcultural stories.
Does the characters’ dialogue appear as dialect? Actually, all speech is (arguably) in one or another dialect; in attempting accurate transcription of any particular version of English we mark it as nonstandard and in some sense deprivilege it. At the same time, the rhythms and accents of Caribbean speech, for example, are distinctive, and to ignore them would do verisimilitude a disservice. Again, monochromatic or static representation is less likely to ring true. Variations within a culture of characters’ vocabularies, inflections, etc., exist, and should be shown. When dealing with characters speaking another language than the one in which the story’s written, the choices become more clear-cut, because they’re more obviously voluntary. By assigning unusual speech patterns to the adopted culture, a writer will distance her readers from the people of that culture.
Desire, the last item on my outline for this essay, is where it all begins. My introduction mentions the draw of exoticism. Of course motivations are never simple, and a love of the “exotic” can be the product of complex forces. Sometimes a person feels an inner resonance with another culture. My younger sister Julie, for instance, was fascinated as a child with Jewish things—not the religion per se but the culture as a whole: food, music, and so on. Looking back, it seems likely that this was because of the ambiguous status of Jewishness; it’s seen as separate in many important ways from dominant white culture, yet was nowhere near as stigmatized as our identity as “Negroes” in the place and time in which we grew up.
In addition, a writer may have other reasons for wanting to write transculturally: to speak for those unheard at one or another level of discourse; to point out similarities between themselves and people generally classified as dissimilar; to hitch a ride on some literary bandwagon such as magical realism; to learn about, understand, and sympathize with members of another culture. Readers have their own versions of most of these motives. Some of these motives are suspect; some are laudable. Some are both.
Many of my ideas on working artistically with another’s culture derive from my religion: specifically, from Ifa priest Luisah Teish’s thoughts on ancestor worship. In her classic Jambalaya: The Natural Woman’s Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals, she advocates broadening the concept of descent to include the enjoyment of all the benefits we derive from all the world’s cultures: “Is your dress made of Japanese silk? Yes? Then revere those ancestors. Having cornbread with dinner tonight? Recognize the work of the Native Americans.” (71)
In the same vein, a young character in Samuel R. Delany’s short autobiographical novel “Atlantis: Model 1924” declares his intention to originate from everywhere:
From now on, I come from all times before me—and all my origins will feed me. Some in Africa I get through my daddy.... Some in Europe I get through the library: Greece and Rome, China and India—I suck my origins in through my feet from the paths beneath them that tie me to the land, from my hands opened high in celebration of the air, from my eyes lifted among the stars— (114)
However, any connections I make with unfamiliar cultures must be more than one-way. When acknowledging benefits derived from a cultural source I also acknowledge that I have responsibilities to that source: the responsibility to recognize it, to learn from it, to protect it, to serve it, to enhance it somehow if I can, to promote it to others. The extent to which I do this depends partly on the extent to which I benefit, and partly on the extent to which I’m able to reciprocate that benefit.
Immaterial things—ideas, beliefs, customs, paradigms, and other non-physical artifacts—have value. This is a concept any patent lawyer would agree with; it’s something that writers who hope to sell their work are literally banking on. But when applied to the topic of cultural appropriation it elicits protests against “commodification
.” Culture, though, is commodified daily. The main variables in its commodification are the buyer and the seller. There’s no reason I know of that only corporations ought to profit from manipulating this equation. The irony-laden efforts of an eBay entrepreneur to sell his “blackness” online a couple of years ago effectively dramatized commodification’s current one-sidedness.
Value fluctuates. If cultural knowledge is information, it can become less valuable when its transmission is masked, like a radio signal, by a lot of noise. The valid information becomes indistinguishable from errors, misinterpretations, and deliberate fabrications made on the part of the transmitter. For instance, I incorporated some elements of Ifa, my religion, in a story of mine called “Wallamelon.” But I also imagined a non-existent form of divination as a tradition of the heroine’s lineage. I’m arguably devaluing my own (adopted) culture, because of my inclusion of this imaginary rite. However, a non-practitioner will be able to distinguish between actual Ifa and my fabrications by reading the disclaimer I’ve included on the subject. Honesty and precision are one sort of currency.
Money is another. Some cultures have lots of it; some have less. If you’re borrowing creative elements from a non-dominant and/or non-Western culture, consider making a cash donation to some institution that supports, preserves, or furthers the knowledge of that culture.
I’ll close with a quote of encouragement for readers and writers in this area from Ryman: “I think that it’s a good thing for the imagination to do to try to imagine someone else’s life. I see no other way to be moral, apart from anything else. Otherwise you end up sympathising only with yourself.…” (Ryman, personal communication.)
Works Cited/Recommended Reading
Cutter, Leah. Paper Mage. New York, NY, Roc, 2003.
Delany, Samuel R. “Atlantis: Model 1924.” Atlantis: Three Tales, Hanover, NH, Wesleyan University, 1995, 113 - 115.
Due, Tananarive. The Good House. New York, NY, Atria, 2003.
Faust, Minister. Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad. New York, NY, Del Rey, 2004.
Frost, Gregory. “The Prowl.” Hopkinson, Nalo, ed., Mojo: Conjure Stories. New York, NY, Warner, 2003.
Irvine, Alexander C. One King, One Soldier. New York, NY, Del Rey, 2004.
Jones, Gwyneth. Divine Endurance. New York, NY, Arbor House, 1987.
McHugh, Maureen F. China Mountain Zhang. New York, NY, Tor, 1992.
Murphy, Pat. The Falling Woman. New York, NY, Tor, 1986.
———. Wild Angel. New York, NY, Tor, 2000.
Ryman, Geoff. Air.
———.The King’s Last Song, or Kraing Meas. (Forthcoming).
Sellman, Tamara Kaye. “Practical Magic: Understanding the Other.” MARGIN Magazine, Summer 2004,
Shawl, Nisi. “Transracial Writing for the Sincere.” Speculations.com, October 1999,
———. “Wallamelon.” Aeon Magazine, May 2005,
Sterling, Bruce. “Maneki Neko.” The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 1998. A Good Old-Fashioned Future, New York, NY, Bantam, 1999.
Teish, Luisah. Jambalaya: The Natural Woman’s Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals. New York, NY, Harper & Row, 1985, 70 - 71.
Excerpt from Nisi Shawl’s forthcoming novel
The Blazing World
We conclude this book with an example of fiction by one of the co-authors which employs parallax, congruence, and creative classification.
The Blazing World is the story of someone most of us would find truly “other”: a clone whose growth has been artificially stunted. The novel takes place about 300 years in our future, in a landscape changed by nano-scaled manufacturing and bioengineering, a political world torn apart by small, nasty conflicts. Clones such as the heroine Mo Kree (aka Ida) are the possessions of rich, protected classes. For ethical reasons (the stunting process is ultimately fatal) an opposition movement called The Treasure Seekers rescues and rehabilitates selected clones. As this excerpt opens, we join Mo Kree and her rescuer Panther (aka Lina) on their journey along the Columbia River toward the island sanctuary of The Treasure Seekers.
All at once I’m waking up, with Panther shaking my shoulder. She goes up to look around. Before I can even use the bucket she is at the top of the ladder, calling me Ida again. Which must mean there are other people around, and we are back to doing our pretend again.
“Yeah, Mom,” I yell. “I’ll be right there.” I hurry up. A smell of smoke bothers my nose, but it’s mostly mist I see. There are some fires, up ahead. They form the shapes of small hills that will pass us on our right. We’re in a little side stream of the river, narrower across.
As we get closer to the fires, I see all sorts of boats tied up together, floating without going. Two big fires on either side of us show exactly why. A big net of chains is hanging down into the water from some rocks. Not too high, but our barge or any of the other boats can never get through that. A little kid could, maybe, swimming.
By this time we are up where everyone is waiting. The silvery mist is brighter now. I don’t know all these kinds of boats I see. Barges, sure. And some look like the Nortons’ nice wooden boat, though a few are made of metal. Others seem to be nothing but bunches of logs with ropes around them. Lots of poles stick up from everything. They hang the sails there. Sails are cloths to catch the wind.
We’re pretty high up from the water. My mom points to a small shape moving between the boats. It looks like a long leaf. When it stops beside a barge, I see the shadow of a man sticking out of its middle. “That’s a baidarka,” Mom tells me. “They’re great. I’ll teach you to use one when we get home.” To the island. She doesn’t say that.
The people on the barge lean down and wave their hands at the man. He twists his baidarka away and out of my sight.
I go down to bring up some froots and bredstix for our breakfast. When I get back the mists have suddenly turned pink, and the fires have faded out. I chew a square of sweetness and watch the baidarka coming closer. Now I can see how the man paddling it has no shirt on. Under a yellow hat, his hair hangs down thick and black, but not like my mom’s. Straighter. His skin has a nice color where it shines with wetness.
He stops at our side. My mom holds out her hands. I put my other froot between my teeth so I can show him mine.
“Hey, that’s one weird tongue you stick out at me, yunitsa.” I laugh and bite my froot so half of it falls onto the deck. He screeches and acts stupid. “Oh, no, I don’t mean for you to spite your face, yunitsa! Oh, I feel so terrible! A woman without a tongue now, even one so strange as yours was, how shameful! How sorrowful! And I to be the cause…your beautiful mother, how ever will she forgive me this my crime?”
My beautiful mother looks mad. Why? He believes our pretend without us even trying. He’s funny, too. But all she says is “Okay. Are you going to let us through?”
“You are impatient, hey? You have waited too long since bearing this last child, till almost she could be called a woman in her own right. Yes. How lucky for you I am gate duty here today. Baida, that is me! Astoria’s foremost impregnator, at your service.” He flips his paddle high into the air and catches it in one hand above his head, without even looking.
“Fine,” my mom says. “Pleased to meet you. Perhaps I will avail myself of your offer after I’ve seen some of the competition.” Neither of them says anything for a moment. Water from his paddle starts dripping down on Baida’s hat. “After you’ve let us in,” my mom adds.
“Yes. Indeed, I hope I do nothing to hinder you.” He points with his paddle and I see how the boats in front of us are moving forward. The metal net in the river has started sinking down. “My companions in the winchtower have understood my signal, which is certainly more importance than if you do. For should you get left behind as the others enter, there lies a charming interval of conversation and instruction until another group accumulates for
my inspection. And after that, I will be relieved and may accompany you as you tour the Fair’s attrac—Wait! You have yet to—Yunitsa, why does your mother behave so strangely? To walk away while I address her seems so rude!”
Mom has started the barge to move again. “My name’s not Yunitsa,” I tell the man in the baidarka. He paddles to stay next to us. “It’s Ida.”
“Aha! Ida and Baida! We rhyme! A sign that we are going to become good friends; wait and see!”
I don’t know about that. We’re probably going to stay here just a short time. On the island, that’s where I’ll get to make my friends. I bend over to pick up my piece of froot. Baida is still beside us when I stand back up, but further behind.
“Tea!” he shouts up at me. “I invite you and your beautiful mother to partake with me at the Tent of the Green Peacock. This afternoon! Say yes, yunitsa!”
“All right,” I yell back. “Maybe. If Mom says so.”
He yells something more from too far away to make sense now. He has stopped his paddling, and we are going over the place of the metal net. So I turn away from him to see what’s in front.
The river and the other boats ahead have made most of the noise so far, but now here come other sounds: yells, and bells ringing, and a drum beating like I should go closer and hear better. And all the mists are parted now. As we swing around a bend I see the Fair.
From here all the pieces of it form into pretty patterns. Mom comes back beside me. “We’ll look for a place to stop beyond the center,” she says. “Want to help me drive?”
I enjoy standing here just staring at the sights. The thing is, though, the idea of making the barge move is also exciting. So I head below.