All language subtitles for Masterclass Salman Rushdie Teaches Storytelling and Writing - 18.Salman s Global Canon

We live in an age
of great translators.

There are wonderful
renderings of books

into English now, from many,
many different languages.

This, in a way-- it
gives us the world.

You will find as much
help, as much inspiration,

in books that come
from far flung

corners of the world written
in languages you don't speak

and talking about people
very different from yourself.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

You know, I think
there's a tendency

that we all have to
be a little-- to be

parochial in our reading.

You know, to-- to want to
read books about people

like us living in a place
like the place where we live.

We recognize in
the book versions

that we recognize as
variations on our own lives.

that we recognize as
variations on our own lives.

And that's natural that we want
to read those kinds of books.

But I think if we only do
that, then we deprive ourselves

of enormous riches.

And certainly, I would
say that books not written

originally in English have been
at least as important to me

as books that were
written in English.

The question of
whether there's a--

of whether there's
a cannon, you know,

whether there are great books
that we should all know--

I mean, I think
the answer is yes.

But the way in which that
cannon has been defined

has been very narrow.

You know, so, yes, we should
read Tolstoy and Dostoevsky

and Proust and Joyce and Kafka.

But very often the
way in which the canon

But very often the
way in which the canon

has been defined in
the West has been

to exclude a lot of writing.

It's been to exclude
writing by non-white writers

and to exclude writing by
non-English language writers.

You know, so I think there's
an argument for making

another kind of cannon, which is
more internationalist and more

diverse.

You know, the literary canon
which is genuinely global.

And I sometimes think it
was a good fortune for me

And I sometimes think it
was a good fortune for me

never to have studied
English literature.

Because I never had a
canon imposed on me,

you know, by professors.

I didn't have to be told
about the great tradition

and obliged to worship at
the shrine of D. H. Lawrence.

You know, I read--

I read in my own
idiosyncratic way.

Like, I suddenly get interested
in Russian literature.

I'd read everything.

And then I'd swing over here and
start reading Latin Americans,

And then I'd swing over here and
start reading Latin Americans,

you know, et cetera.

I would just go on these
adventures in literature

as my way of educating myself,
teaching myself about writing.

You may well find that the
book that unlocks something

in your head, the book
that shows you the way,

is something that was originally
written in Russian or Japanese

or Hungarian, you know.

You never know.

And it's worth just going on
these voyages of discovery

And it's worth just going on
these voyages of discovery

to see what they can give you.

There are Indian writers
that I deeply admire, like

the novelist Anita
Desai, who I would say

is the kind of heir
of Jane Austen.

You know, that she's writing
in India books which--

which feel like what Jane
Austen might have written if she

had been an Indian writer.

had been an Indian writer.

You know, as in
Jane Austen, women

are very formidable
characters, but are

very limited by the constraints
of the culture in which they're

in, which restricts the
possibilities for women.

So you know, in Jane
Austen you constantly

have strong female
characters pushing

against the boundaries of what's
possible in British culture

at that time.

And in Anita Desai, in
a novel, for example,

like "Clear Light of Day," you
find the same thing happening.

like "Clear Light of Day," you
find the same thing happening.

You find these very,
very brilliant women

caged and trying to bust out.

There are a lot of Japanese
writers that I admire

enormously, Jun'ichiro
Tanizaki in particular,

who writes about the transition
of Japanese society from

the traditional old style
Japan to a more modern world.

the traditional old style
Japan to a more modern world.

And to write about the
tensions and frictions that

happen inside families
and inside communities

in that process of transition.

And I think that's--

that has always been a subject
for me in a different place.

How does a traditional society
change into a modern society?

I think that's something
I've thought about a lot

in the context of
India, for example.

You know, so
Japanese writers have

helped me think about that.

Latin American literature
has been important to me,

partly because when I started
reading the great South

American writers,
I had never been

to South America or
Central America at all.

I knew only the books.

But when I read the
books, I found a lot there

that was familiar to me from my
own experience in South Asia.

that was familiar to me from my
own experience in South Asia.

That's to say, both worlds had a
colonial history, very powerful

colonial history.

Different colonizers.

Spanish in one case,
British in another.

But the same kind of
experience of colonization.

Both worlds were
societies in which

there was a great disparity
between wealth and poverty.

A few people, very rich.

A large number of
people, bitterly poor.

A large number of
people, bitterly poor.

Both worlds had a kind
of conflict between--

between the reality of the city
and the reality of rural life,

village life.

Both worlds had armies that
tended to interfere in politics

and a history of dictators.

And so I found when I'm
reading these Latin Americans,

I thought, oh, this
is really quite like

where I come from, but kind
of translated into Spanish.

where I come from, but kind
of translated into Spanish.

A number of the Latin
American writers

who have become so
celebrated as magic realists

say that they were inspired
by the 1001 Nights,

that they were reading Spanish
translation, obviously,

of these Arabic stories.

And that helped them to
develop their own voices.

So I had a fellow feeling when
I was reading these books.

And that's been inspiring
to me, because it's

And that's been inspiring
to me, because it's

given me ways of thinking about
the world that I came from.

So yes, of course, you
read inside your language

and inside your culture.

But I think you'd just
be doing yourself a favor

to go outside those
boundaries as well.

Because you might find
in-- in worlds very, very

remote from your own things that
you recognize and things that

are helpful to you
in your own work.

are helpful to you
in your own work.