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Conrads or Kritofs not in Engl./French?

 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading Post Reply
Mork the Fiddle
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 Message 1 of 7
25 July 2015 at 9:49pm | IP Logged 
Joseph Conrad famously mastered English as an L2 well enough to write first-rate novels and short stories in it. Samuel Beckett and Agota Kritóf did likewise for French. Although I myself certainly do not have the talent--never mind the proficiency--to duplicate their efforts, their success buoys me up as a language learner, and I ask myself, “Do languages other than English and French have their Conrads and Kritófs?”
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Via Diva
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 Message 2 of 7
26 July 2015 at 3:17am | IP Logged 
On writing in a foreign language
Don't know if it's a correct example, but there's a number of writers whose first language ought to be Ukrainian, but they wrote in Russian - like Nikolai Gogol.
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luke
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 Message 3 of 7
27 July 2015 at 11:19am | IP Logged 
Leo Tolstoy wrote extended passages of War and Peace in French.
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Josquin
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 Message 4 of 7
27 July 2015 at 1:12pm | IP Logged 
luke wrote:
Leo Tolstoy wrote extended passages of
War and Peace in French.

Thomas Mann also included longer passages in English, French, and Italian in his novels
(notably in The Magic Mountain and in Confessions of Felix Krull).
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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 5 of 7
19 August 2015 at 5:07pm | IP Logged 
Greek-born Theodor Kallifatides has written exclusively in Swedish since his début in 1969 (at 29 years of age).

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Kallifatides
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aloysius
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 Message 6 of 7
20 August 2015 at 12:26am | IP Logged 
August Strindberg wrote in French as well (most famously Inferno).

Source for quotation below

Strindberg was a cosmopolite. He spent a third of his life in Germany, France, Switzerland, Denmark and Austria where he was able to absorb intellectual trends. A number of his works were originally written in French. As Strindberg remarked, ‘I must be a European first before my word will count in Sweden!’
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Striver
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 Message 7 of 7
28 September 2015 at 6:35am | IP Logged 
To my mind, the greatest example of the phenomenon being discussed in this thread is Vladimir Nabokov. He grew up speaking Russian and French, but he is without a doubt one of the greatest English language novelists.

Lolita is universally renowned as a masterpiece, and Pale Fire is almost as highly thought of. Even his lesser works eclipse most other novelists best work. He was also a noted professor of literature in the US.

Edited by Striver on 28 September 2015 at 6:36am



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