George Paizis has written of romantic fiction that
Today the genre originates from two primary sources - North America and the United Kingdom - is written by residents of these countries, acquired and published in these countries, yet translated and sold to tens of millions of readers all over the world. (Love 10)While I suspect it's probably true that most romances are written, and first published, in English, Paizis seems to have overlooked the Australian and New Zealand romance authors. As far as I know associations for romance authors can be found in the UK (the RNA "started in 1960"), the US (RWA was "chartered in 1981" and has a chapter based in Canada), New Zealand (RWNZ was "founded in 1990"), and Australia (RWA was "formed in 1991"), . So I was very interested when, thanks to Lucy King's blog I came across news of
- a conference about romantic novels, Jornadas sobre Novela Romántica, held in Sevilla at the beginning of this month. Designed for readers, authors, editors, and booksellers the conference has attracted both authors who write in Spanish and translators who translate romantic fiction into Spanish. There's a pdf introduction to this year's Jornadas here.
- the launch of the Asociación de Autoras Románticas de España (ADARDE) which aims to support Spanish authors of romantic fiction and raise the profile of the genre in Spain.
France
According to
Karin Stoecker, editorial director at Harlequin Mills and Boon, [...] their medical romance programme had a loyal readership.Websites for romance readers include: Les Romantiques; Roselia. Onirik has a romance review section.
"Overseas, it's also a very popular programme - it's the best selling in France." (BBC)
Germany
Websites for romance readers include: Die romantische Bücherecke, Romance Forum and Liebesroman Forum. There is a German magazine dedicated to the genre, LoveLetter (and there's also a LoveLetter blog).
Rike Horstmann of AAR has written an article about the "general disdain with which romances are regarded here [which] is partly dependent on the way they are marketed."
Sandra Schwab observes in the comment below that
German readers have finally started to blog, too, and the number of readers' blogs increases.India
Though the German romance market is indeed dominated by English translations, this doesn't mean that there aren't any German romance authors. Most of them (have to) use English pseudonyms, though. Those who don't tend to write romantic comedies or chick lit.
Harlequin Mills & Boon India recently opened its offices there but they already had a strong brand presence. Andrew J Go, the Director of HM&B India says that
"A substantial percentage of Mills & Boon readership in India is male! You don't see that in other markets." Go has speculations on why this is the case. Perhaps it's just the sheer ubiquity of M&B novels: "Their sisters and mothers are reading them and since they are lying around the men read them too." Or perhaps it's because in a culture where information on sex and romance wasn't exactly in large supply, M&B novels were one available source. Perhaps it's just that Indian men appreciate the good read that most M&B novels are. (Doctor, The Economic Times)
Italy
Websites for romance readers: Isn't It Romantic?, Juneross Blog, La mia biblioteca romantica, Un mondo rosa and Rosa is for Romance.
Olivia Ardey brought to our attention Mariangela Camocardi (whose many historical novels have been published by Mondadori and Harlequin Mondadori) and the recently published Elisabetta Bricca (published by Harlequin Mondadori). Harlequin Mondadori is
A joint venture, created in 1981 by two large publishing groups - Harlequin Enterprises and Mondadori, Harlequin Mondadori is a specialised publisher of fiction for women and has become a point of reference for a new genre of women's fiction .Interestingly, despite there being no mention in this summary of the company's activities of romantic fiction written by Italian authors, they clearly are publishing some, in addition to the translations of novels originally written in English.
Every year Harlequin Mondadori publishes around 650 titles, an average of 50 per month, translated from the originals of around 1,300 Anglo-American writers, and with total sales in 2008 of more than 6 million copies and more than 260 million over twenty years.
The distribution channels used by the company are essentially three: newsstands, retail outlets and direct subscriptions.
Japan
Websites for romance readers: Ivanhoe Station's blog. According to George Paizis
The taste of Japanese readers is different to that of others. "[They] love stories about Arabian sheiks and Mediterranean heroes but don't like romances set in hospitals or rural American settings." Also, the covers of the books must show less naked skin than those of the US market and use lighter colours. ("Category" 135)Russia
MD comments that
translations from English (mostly US authors) are made very promptly, and sell well both as hardcover and as paperback. The society is dismissive of romance (all the worst stereotypes are magnified many times), but, like in the US, the books do sell. There are Russian authors as well, but even though they are published in Romance series, I would call them women's fiction.
Spain and South America
Amelia Castilla, writing in El País about romantic fiction stated that 'En el año 2000, el porcentaje de venta en el mercado español era mínimo y el año pasado llegó al 4%, lo que supone unos ingresos de unos 30 millones de euros' [In 2000, the percentage on sale in the Spanish market was minimal, and last year [2006] it reached 4%, which translates into sales of around 30 million Euros]
Corín Tellado had her first novel was published in 1946 and continued writing throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first until her recent death. Jo Labanyi's "Romancing the Early Franco Regime: the Novelas Románticas of Concha Linares-Becerra and Luisa-María Linares" focuses on two other authors from this early period. Authors who have arrived on the scene more recently include Florencia Bonelli, from Argentina.
As the news at the beginning of this post demonstrates, there are some very active romantic novelists in Spain today. There would also appear to be increasing numbers of websites for Spanish-speaking romance readers, including: Autoras en la Sombra, Cazadoras del Romance, El rincón romántico, E-románticos, Gauchas Románticas, Noche en Almack's, Universo Romance.
I also found an online romance magazine and a blog written by a reader who reads her novels in English, but reviews them in Spanish.
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- Paizis, George. “Category Romance in the Era of Globalization: The Story of Harlequin.” The Global Literary Field. Ed. Anna Guttman, Michel Hockx and George Paizis. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2006. 126-51.
- Paizis, George. Love and the Novel: The Poetics of Romantic Fiction. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1998.
The photo of the map of the world is from Wikimedia Commons. It shows a "1763 Chinese map of the world, claiming to incorporate information from a 1418 map. Discovered by Lui Gang in 2005."
There are also some German romance forums:
ReplyDeleteRomance Forum
Liebesroman Forum
In addition, German readers have finally started to blog, too, and the number of readers' blogs increases.
Though the German romance market is indeed dominated by English translations, this doesn't mean that there aren't any German romance authors. Most of them (have to) use English pseudonyms, though. Those who don't tend to write romantic comedies or chick lit.
Today the genre originates from two primary sources - North America and the United Kingdom - is written by residents of these countries, acquired and published in these countries, yet translated and sold to tens of millions of readers all over the world.
On the other hand, we "Westerners" (is that a word?) (probably not) tend to forget that there's a vast field of literature of which we've never heard because it has been written in a (from a Western POV) somewhat more inaccessible language (Chinese, Japanese, etc.) and has never been translated. In addition, other cultures often use narrative patterns and techniques as well as publishing formats that are different to what tends to be the norm in the Western world - just think of the enormous popularity of mangas in Japan! It's certainly no accident that Harlequin/M&B romances have been transformed into mangas in Japan. But there are also quite a number of romance mangas or mangas with strong romantic subplots written by Asian writers, e.g. "Waltz Wa Shiroi Dress De" by Chiho Saito (a story about two star-crossed lovers, set in Tokyo in 1935).
Thanks, Sandra. I've added those links to the post.
ReplyDeleteI know I let a bit of "romantic fiction" creep in, but I was deliberately trying to focus on romance novels (defined as having happy endings for the central love story). I'm interested in how the genre is read and produced around the world, and what differences there might be in reader preferences in different parts of the world.
Because of my interest in the romance genre, I was leaving out tragic love stories, multi-generation sagas with romantic elements, "chick lit" and lots of other kinds of "romantic fiction." I was also focusing on novels rather than other forms of romance (e.g. Hollywood romantic comedies, Bollywood romantic films, romantic manga).
But if other people want to share their knowledge of other forms of romantic-storytelling in the comments, I certainly don't want to prevent them from doing so.
romance novels (defined as having happy endings for the central love story).
ReplyDeleteLaura, the point I was trying to make was that in other countries and cultures romance might have a different definition and that to approach these cultural products with our current Western definition of romance (or perhaps we should say the American definition of romance) doesn't work.
Take the example of manga - in Japan this is one of the major forms of publishing, and it has a huge audience. As I said, it is no accident that when Harlequin novels were translated into Japanese, they were made into manga - because that's what people read for pleasure in Japan.
Romance novels as you have defined them are produced in a specific cultural context. If the cultural context changes, you cannot expect to find exactly the same literary/cultural product. When Paizis writes that romantic fiction as a genre mainly originates from North America and the UK, this is only true for one very specific form of romantic fiction.
Russia is a huge market - translations from English (mostly US authors) are made very promptly, and sell well both as hardcover and as paperback. The society is dismissive of romance (all the worst stereotypes are magnified many times), but, like in the US, the books do sell. There are Russian authors as well, but even though they are published in Romance series, I would call them women's fiction - adultery, for example, is very common, in ways that would be unacceptable to US or UK romance readers, as are morally ambiguous heroes and heroines.
ReplyDeleteNo blogs or review sites that I am aware of, though - I wish there were some, since trying to read Russian authors without reviews has proved to be a thankless endeavor.
"When Paizis writes that romantic fiction as a genre mainly originates from North America and the UK, this is only true for one very specific form of romantic fiction."
ReplyDeleteSandra, when he uses the word "originates" here he's not claiming that all love stories with happy endings originate in the UK and US. He's only claiming that Harlequin Mills & Boon, and single-title US romances, are sold worldwide and that not many of their authors are from countries other than the UK and UK (although, as I said, I think he's missed out the Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand romance authors).
"the point I was trying to make was that in other countries and cultures romance might have a different definition"
"Romance" has lots of different definitions, even in the UK, and I'm not unaware that there have been many different ideas about romantic love, and different forms of art which deal with its expression, in different cultures across time and place.
However, what I'm trying to do here is a bit like trying to follow one particular folktale motif, to see if it exists in recognisably similar (but still culturally specific) form(s) across a number of cultures, and also to see where, even if it wasn't in a culture's original set of folktales, they've had no trouble incorporating it into their repertoire once it was imported at a particular point in time.
Thanks MD. I've incorporated part of your comment into the main post. Re the women's fiction angle, I found something which suggests that there's a bit of a tradition of this in Russia:
ReplyDelete"in the years before the Revolution, War and Peace was a long way from being Russia's best-selling title. For that matter, War and Peace was not even Tolstoy's own most popular title; his best-selling work was The Kreutzer Sonata, which is about sex. But that and every other Russian novel was outsold by something called The Keys to Happiness, a 1,400-page epic of romance and sexual liberation by the exceedingly flamboyant author Anastasia Verbitskaya. While very much a product of its time, the appeal of Verbitskaya's now-forgotten work has a great deal in common with what sells so many Harlequins.
The six volumes of The Keys to Happiness tell the story of one Mania Eltzova, her search for personal fulfillment in art and love, and the price she eventually pays for her independence. According to synopses (the work seems never to have been translated), the novel is filled with melodramatic encounters and sexual affairs, and lots of talk about art, feminism, and revolution. The eponymous key to happiness, by the way, is a woman's ability to enjoy sex without letting her emotions get in the way. [...]
Furthermore, The Keys to Happiness is very openly indebted for its ideas to other best-selling novels that it assumes its readers are familiar with. It is very closely
related to the sensational novel Sanin by Mikhail Artsybashev, which swept Russia during this period; Verbitskaya even has her characters discuss the other novel's ideas.
These and other, related, novels were made possible by the change in censorship laws that followed the upheavals of 1905, and for a dozen years Russia's reading market zoomed in on popular concerns. [...] It was an emerging literature not only of escape, but of personal possibility. Of course, it was completely snuffed out in 1917 by the communists [...].
Incidentally, Verbitskaya's original heroine eventually pays for her daring choices by committing suicide, an unhappy ending that just doesn't happen in the Harlequin formula. (Freund)
Richard Stites, in his Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society since 1900 gives some more detail about the context in which Anastasia Verbitskaya and Mikhail Artsybashev were writing.
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Freund, Charles Paul, 1997. 'Readin', Russians, and Romance: So Tolstoy's not Russia's best seller? When was he?', Reason.com.
However, what I'm trying to do here is a bit like trying to follow one particular folktale motif, to see if it exists in recognisably similar (but still culturally specific) form(s) across a number of cultures
ReplyDeleteUh-oh. You do realise that this is a can of worms, don't you? ;)
No, but please do explain the worminess to me.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I didn't choose a good comparison. I know pretty much as little about football as I do about the study of folktales, but here goes:
ReplyDeleteLet's say I wrote a post about football around the world. I could then clarify that this was the game as defined by FIFA. I wouldn't be trying to deny the existence of other games which involve kicking a ball (or even the existence of games which do alternative things to balls), and I wouldn't be making a value judgement about other ball games, or whether the spread of football is good or bad. I would just be trying to find out how popular football played by FIFA rules is in various different countries around the world.
Would that open up a can of worms?
Hola Laura, permite que te escriba en español porque no hablo inglés. Soy una escritora española de novela romántica y que reciéntemente he publicado mi primera novela DAMA DE TRÉBOLES, histórica ambientada en el Oeste Americano. En concreto, en los alrededores de Denver (Co) en 1884.
ReplyDeleteEstoy muy orgullosa porque mi novela es el primer western romántico que se publica en España, escrito en español y por una autora española. Te invito a visitar mi blog; en él encontrarás enlaces a las webs y blogs más importantes de narrativa romántica en español, y alguno italiano ya que tengo una entrañable relación con algunas autoras y lectoras italianas.
Pertenezco a ADARDE y te agradezco en su nombre que hayas incluído en enlace de nuestra asociación en tu blog. Y también participé en las III Jornadas de Novela Romántica de Sevilla. En mi blog puedes ver el programa de trabajo y algunas fotografías.
Además de las webs que incluyes españolas, creo que te falta www.autorasenlasombra.com... la web más visitada romántica de mi país, con una base de datos de 1035 autores y 8.616 libros.
En España la narrativa romántica goza de mucha popularidad y son muchos los sitios webs especializados. Para no incluírlos todos en este post, te invito de nuevo a visitar mi blog donde encontrarás todos los enlaces.
Y con respecto a Italia, los sitios más populares son http://bibliotecaromantica.blogspot.com/ y www.junerossblog.com
La autora más publicada italiana es Mariangela Camocardi con 30 novelas publicadas, y también conozco a Elisabetta Brica.
Te dejo mi dirección de correo electrónico antonioymontse@ono.com, estaré encantada de hablar contigo con respecto a la narrativa romántica, sobre mi novela DAMA DE TRÉBOLES y sobre este apasionante mundo que cada vez es tratado con más respeto.
Te felicito por este expléndido blog, y lo enlazo con el mío porque me parece excelente el tratamiento tan serio con el que estudias el género romántico.
Un abrazo desde España. OLIVIA
¡Hola, Olivia! Muchas gracias por la información acerca de los varios blogs y las autoras Italianas. Lo he integrado en el blog post.
ReplyDelete"he publicado mi primera novela DAMA DE TRÉBOLES, histórica ambientada en el Oeste Americano. En concreto, en los alrededores de Denver (Co) en 1884."
He notado que a los Americanos les gusta mucho leer novelas románticas históricas que tienen lugar en Inglaterra. Claro que si que hay "Western romances" escritas por Americanas, pero no parecen tener tanto éxito como las novelas "Regency." Supongo que para ellos (y esto es algo que varias lectoras Americanas han escrito en varios blogs) los lugares fuera de EE.UU les resultan mas exóticos. Y claro, para nosotros que vivimos en Europa, la vida en EE.UU es bastante exótico.
[Olivia Ardey's a Spanish romantic novelist whose first novel, Dama de tréboles (Queen of Clubs) has just been published. It's set in Denver, Colorado, in 1884. I was just remarking to her that I find it interesting that she should have chosen an American setting, because Westerns don't seem to be so popular with American romance readers (though of course there are still a fair number of Western Romances published in English in the US) compared to Regency romances. I know that some American readers have said that they find English/European settings more exotic, but of course for those of us who are European, the US can seem pretty exotic.
She also gave some more details about romance authors in Italy and some more websites for Spanish and Italian readers. I've added those to the original blog post.]
Dear authors from “Teach Me Tonight”
ReplyDeleteWe want to thank you from our organization, ADARDE, your incredible effort in bringing romance the place it must reach among other genres. We know things are better in other countries, but in Spain we are still fighting to get that recognition; ADARDE was founded the 6th November in order to reach that goal.
ADARDE was founded by seventeen authors of romance (Olivia Ardey, May Beneito, Jezz Burning, Pilar Cabero, Teresa Cameselle, Mar Carrión, Anna Casanovas, Ebony Clark, Lucía González Lavado, Amber Lake, Josephine Lyss, Megan Maxwell, Mónica Peñalver, Rebeca Rus, M. J. Sánchez, Claudia Velasco, Lena Valenti), but we are waiting our spanish colleagues to join ourselves in this marvelous adventure. We want to get the respect and importance romance has in the English market.
We want to bring you our collaboration when you need it. Count on us.
Our love and best wishes from Spain.
I'm trying to better my Spanish by reading romance novels (series-length) and to date I've had to purchase Harlequin Deseo titles which are translated from English. I had wondered whether there were no Latin American romance novel counterparts.
ReplyDeleteI'll definitely check out the Spanish links here to see if I can add any "real" Spanish titles to my collection.
I hope you find lots of interesting new authors, Dalia.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, as I'm in the UK, I haven't come across any myself, other than Isabel Allende's De amor y de sombra. The synopsis here puts an emphasis on the political aspects of the novel, and obviously those are important, but when we were taught it at university the lecturer mentioned that in many respects it could also be read as a "novela rosa."