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Conrads or Kritofs not in Engl./French? | ||
Tags: Non-native Speakers | Literature | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| Mork the Fiddle Senior Member United States Joined 3749 days ago 86 posts - 159 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 1 of 7 25 July 2015 at 9:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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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 Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4014 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 2 of 7 26 July 2015 at 3:17am | IP Logged | ||
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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. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6985 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 3 of 7 27 July 2015 at 11:19am | IP Logged | ||
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Leo Tolstoy wrote extended passages of War and Peace in French.
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| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4624 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 4 of 7 27 July 2015 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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). 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6689 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 7 19 August 2015 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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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 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| aloysius Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6020 days ago 226 posts - 291 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: French, Greek, Italian, Russian | Message 6 of 7 20 August 2015 at 12:26am | IP Logged | ||
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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!’ 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Striver Newbie United States Joined 3147 days ago 8 posts - 15 votes Studies: French | Message 7 of 7 28 September 2015 at 6:35am | IP Logged | ||
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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 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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