Why are Canadian writers/ books not popular outside of Canada - or am I incorrect?

I ran across a challenge to read a book that was very low on Library Things popularity index. I replied - that's easy for me! Just take a Canadian book - especially a literary sort of book - and you have yourself a not very widely read book. Someone replied that they were surprised at that - and it got me thinking - why are Canadian books not especially popular in the US - as the US books are often very popular here? Anyone have any thoughts on that?

The challenge was to read a book above 10,000 on the LibraryThingPopularity Index - the higher the number, the less popular the book is on LT.

I thought of the Canadian books that I have read lately The Heart Specialist - and I enjoyed it, but it is very low on the popularity index. I cited Room as a Canadian book - but someone said the author was born and educated in the UK - perhaps Ireland -and so it is. I know of one book that I can think of lately that I think is fairly popular and may have broken into the US market, a debut novel Still Missing by Chevy Stevens - and it's a well written excellent mystery - yet we do not pay much attention to her book.

I tried to think of reasons why Canadian books are not popular - often times in Canada.

Small population to draw on for authors?

Many authors get grants from the Canada Council for Arts - so they are tend to write very Canadian oriented books?

Canadian books tend to be depressing and people want an escape in their reading?

I'm lost for answers. I am not being critical of Canadian authors or books, as I read and enjoy them much of the time.

Any thoughts at to why more of our books are not more mainsteam?

The books that come to mind as Canadian always seem to be literary fiction, which maybe isn't as popular as the awards committees like to think. What are some recent "popular" Canadian books?

It is not true that Canadian books and authors aren't widely read outside Canada.

Consider Alice Munro, who is widely acclaimed as one of the world's greatest contemporary writers. Consider Margaret Atwood or Michael Ondaatje. Consider Alistair MacLeod or Rawi Hage, both winners of the IMPAC Dublin Award. Yann Martel? Etc.

Low recognition and sales isn't a problem exclusive to Canadian writers. Most books fail to sell, regardless of where they're published. I can find dozens of excellent American writers who have low LT numbers without reaching too far. The notion that American books are popular in Canada is bunk -- only well known American books sell well in Canada.

#3: Awards juries don't recognize popularity. If they did, we wouldn't need juries -- we'd just give the award to whatever moved the largest number of units. Want a popular Canadian writer? How about William Gibson? Or Guy Gavriel Kay?

>4 ajsomerset: You're right, "popular" wasn't quite the word I was going for. Liked by people outside of the juries? The value I'm thinking of is whatever's reflected in the LT ratings, for example. By that measure, the GG award winners seem to tend toward the mediocre.

Lots of people would agree that the GGs tend towards the mediocre. GG juries are often driven by regional rivalries and other such nonsense.

But juries select what juries like, for whatever reason. I think this year's Giller winner was awful, and I'm not alone.

I guess it depends on the audience. I was under the impression that in some booktrading sites, many Canadian authors are sought after (At least that is my experience when I put them up for trade).

There are some good Canadian mystery writers:

Gail Bowen has a series based in Regina featuring Joanne Kilbourn
Ladies Killing Circle has great short stories
Mary Jane Maffini has 3 series, Fiona Silk, Charlotte Adams and Camilla MacPhee
Rosemary Aubert with Judge/street person Ellis Portal in Toronto
Eric Wright with Mel Pickett, Lucy Trimble and Charlie Salter
Barbara Fradkin and Inspector Michael Green in Ottawa

just to mention a few...

I've lived in Canada for just two years and I agree with vancouverdeb. And I can tell you that I believe that Canadian writers (with some exceptions, such as those cited by ajsomerset) just aren't promoted in the US. One of the things my husband and I really love about being in Canada is the emphasis on reading. Everywhere you go, people talk about books. It's not so much like that in the US - at least in NYC where I came from.

pmarshall - no offence -but I looked up Gail Bowen -and she is relatively unknown here on library thing. I also checked Eric Wright -and he would seem to relatively unknown on library thing - http://www.librarything.com/author/wrighteric . I'm not trying to suggest that Canadian books are bad - check out my Cross Canada Reads - but it did occur to me that most Canadian authors are not especially popular -even in Canada.

I just read the The Heart Specialist which I very much enjoyed - but it's not popular.

I'll have to check the others when I have time.I'm not trying to criticize Canadian authors -far from it. It came to my attention the other day -and when I think of it - when you walk into a library or say - Chapter's/ Indigo - the vast majority of books are not by Canadian authors . If you look at a list of best sellers - it's seldom that you will see a Canadian author.

Perhaps it's simply the small population of Canada. I'm not even suggesting that * popular * books are better reads - I'm merely pondering on the question of why Canadian writers tend to be relatively unknown.

Even Yann Martell - except for Life of Pi - he is not especially popular- http://www.librarything.com/author/martelyann

and Michael Ondaatje - well read .

I do agree that Will Gibson is popular according to library thing - looked it up - and yes, Margaret Atwood and Margaret Lawrence are well read here on LT. I could not find Alistair Macleod - there seems to be a number of them by the same author.

Anyway, it's an interesting topic - I mean nothing critical about it. Just pondering.

Ohh- thought of a Canadian Mystery writer who is just beginning to break into the US market, and write relatively good books http://www.librarything.com/author/barclaylinwood . They are a mix of mystery/ thriller/and a bit of humour.

The reason is actually much simpler than most would care to admit: mass-market success for a writer is about celebrity. You have to get yourself, and your book, talked about incessantly. Most of the machinery of hype is in the United States, but that machinery pays no attention to Canadian entertainment buzz. Consequently, books that are massively hyped in the US are read in Canada, but the reverse is not true.

Edited to add: people travel from all over the world to find the house Alistair MacLeod lived in on Cape Breton. If you want to measure popularity according to LT numbers, that's one thing. But if you think MacLeod isn't widely read internationally based on LT numbers, you're making a mistake.

I have several Canadian authors whose books I love, but none of them are literary works. I really hate "literary" books. I have tried to read award winning books and I won't try any more, Canadian or not. They are too depressing. Unfortunately, those are the books that get talked about on CBC which is where I get most of my book news. However, I do love "Canadiana" type books about our history or how people live and how the country grew.

Some of my favourite Canadian fiction writers are:

Donald Jacks
W.O. Mitchell
Dave Duncan
L.M. Montgomery
Guy Gavriel Kay
William Gibson
Dennis Patrick Sears

And of course there are a lot of great non-fiction writers as well.

I know you're not criticizing CanLit, Deborah, because I know how much of it you read (sometimes I wonder if you read anything else!).

I think a lot of it comes down to marketing and promotion--our publishing industry just isn't as big as the behemoth south of the border. I'm not sure it's fair to compare a country of 30-odd million with one of 300 million. Maybe it would be more accurate to compare with Australia and how their books and authors do. Another thing that makes our two countries comparable is that our publishing companies are relative babies compared with the US and UK.

I also think that when looking at LT numbers, you only see the huge numbers for the really big sellers, and also for books that have been on the market for a long time . . . Pride and Prejudice has something like 36,000 copies on LT, but has been available since 1813. (Word is out about it, in other words ;-)

I really do think it's nothing more than marketing--people read what they've heard about. Here's one that I think illustrates this: Water for Elephants has over 13,000 copies on LT. The author, Sara Gruen, is Canadian. However, she was living in the States when she wrote this book and sent it to a US publisher. Viola, she's outselling most other Canadian authors.

Regarding Water for Elephants: I have heard that book is good, but I have also heard that there is cruelty to animals in it so I won't read it because I don't want to spend a long time feeling all of that. Is there a lot of cruelty in it?

Water for Elephants is hugely popular, but I found it both uninteresting and poorly written. There probably was some cruelty to animals in it--there certainly was a lot of cruelty to humans. But then you find that in a lot of books.

@15 - Interesting discussion. That what I was beginning to think - how can we compare 36 million people - Canada - to the US. And @13 - I can understand what you mean about the celebrity culture south of the border that sells books. Just look at how Oprah's picks tend to sell. So, I can see what you mean. One of the questions on the challenge that I was doing - pick a low popularity LT book - and do you think it deserves that status. I can see that you would answer no , ajsomerset.

I'm really not trying to disparage Canadian books, or even CanLit. I'm in the midst of Gold Diggers:Striking it Rich in the Klondike a non - fiction book about the Klondike Gold Rush . Fascinating and well written.

I really enjoy the Globe and Mail on Saturday's for the book reviews - though I think it was the Vancouver Sun that gave a good review to Gold Diggers - and thus was aware of it and am now reading it.

Interesting discussion! Thanks everyone! not sure touchstones are working! ;)

Back in university (this would have been in 1996), I took a course in CanLit and the professor who taught it was visiting from Denmark. She was flabbergasted that CanLit was not all that popular in Canada when, according to her, people all over Europe loved it. She had nothing but great things to say about Atwood, Laurence and Munro among others (and surprisingly enough, she knew quite a few of the lesser known authors and promoted those in class).

Also, when I took a trip to England and Scotland two years ago, I was surprised at the number of Canadian authored books I saw in the bookstores there. So I would argue that we are popular in some parts of the world. USA? Not so much. But then again, they are much larger and publishers there have money to promote their own. We just can't compete well on that stage.

She was flabbergasted that CanLit was not all that popular in Canada when, according to her, people all over Europe loved it.

Interesting! I can see that, because a few years ago I was interviewed about CanLit by some women that were visiting from some university in the UK (Leeds, maybe? I can't believe I don't remember). One of the women was just crazy about CanLit. I was just amazed that they actually had a Canadian Studies department at a UK university. And I'm sad to say that since then the Canadian Studies department of my university (Simon Fraser) has been dissolved.

Really interesting info, bucketyell! - and you too, Nickelini! Who could have known? Really fascinating! Thanks for adding to the discussion.

#19 - I'm really surprised - I got the totally opposite reaction! When I mentioned CanLit in France or England, I would get a scoff in return as though it were some kind of sub-literature (needless to say I got really angry and prattled off a bunch of authors I love). I think there is still a lot of prejudice around Canadian literature, both French and English, that it still hasn't attained maturity - after all not a single Canadian has won the Nobel prize.
This said, Poland is the only other country outside Canada teaching French Canadian lit...

I think we just haven't gotten around to establishing our contribution internationally yet, but I'm sure that with some heavyweights like Margaret Atwood we will get there!

Well,, I found a small but somewhat interesting entry on Wikipedia as to Canadian Literature -and some criticisms of it -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_literature

Interesting what you say about no one in Canada having won the Nobel Prize. I"m sure in part is simply because we are a smaller country than many others.

At any rate - and interesting topic, and thanks for contributing to the discussion.

(Sorry, late to the party...)

I find this discussion fascinating because I *love* CanLit. I geek out when Anne Michaels or Camilla Gibb have a new book out. I ordered Zoe Whittall's second novel the first day it was out. And I was a little more excited than a person probably should be to find that someone (Charles Foran) had written a 700-page bio about Mordecai Richler.

I could attribute it to liking the style of writing as a whole, or national pride, or being an aspiring writer looking up to the pros in my country. Or all of the above. But I honestly love the stuff, and it surprises me to find more people don't - am I just weirder than I think? ;)

Oddly enough, I hear Canadian authors do especially well in Germany. In Frankfurt, there's an annual international conference for publishers, and a large number of foreign-language rights for books are sold there. Canadian books tend to be snapped up by German-language publishing houses—and sometimes, sales are even stronger in Germany than in the U.S.! Wild, but also awesome!

That's really interesting, GirlNamedJones. Interesting that Germany in particular is interested in our books!

I'm kind of amazed at how popular Canadian books are on Librarything! Many people read Margaret Atwood, Jane Urquhart, Carol Shields (originally American), Alice Munro. I just finished The Book of Negroes which is Canadian, and many people have read it. Some of the readers don't consider that they are reading CanLit....They are just reading good literature.
P.S. I loved Water for Elephants and can hardly wait to see the movie.

#17 - I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who wasn't impressed with Water for Elephants. It left absolutley no impression on me, yet so many people loved it. In reference to the popularity of CanLit, I can only say that so many of Canada's really good books are terribly serious, oppresive, depressing and always seem to focus on very dysfunctinal people and families. Having said that, I like to read "Canadiana" and some of my favourite authors are Canadian but the selection of great stories that are not really dark is limited. I may be really wrong in the following opinion....but I always get the impression that Canadian writers are trying very hard to be taken seriously and therefore are always trying to write the next great tragedy. When I read, the things I appreciate the most are excellent stories and really well developed characters and there is a lot of that in Canadian lit. but I can only handle so much abuse, incest and dysfunction without coming up for air.

#28: In reference to the popularity of CanLit, I can only say that so many of Canada's really good books are terribly serious, oppresive, depressing and always seem to focus on very dysfunctinal people and families.

The same is also true of American and British books. Thomas McGuane, an American novelist, said last year that you would find more laughs in Dostoevsky than in contemporary American novels.

The thing is, the reading public in Canada tends to ignore funny or entertaining books in favour of what they believe to be more "serious" work. I don't know who you can blame for that, but it is worth noting that awards are the primary drivers of book sales in Canada. Awards tend to favour humourless stodge like The Sentimentalists, which leads some people to believe that The Sentimentalists, for example, is a really good book, which it is not.

Perhaps we can blame the way literature is now taught. Too many readers, it seems, suspend their own judgments as unworthy and instead follow the opinions of people who have been academically conditioned to believe that reading should be a particularly complex species of drudgery.

That's why Canada Reads is so great -- we've had several lighter books taking the prize, including this year's Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis and Paul Quarrington's King Leary a few years ago.

#30 - and Lullabies for Little Criminals.

This is true. One of the good points of Canada Reads is that its selections have recently tended to be more populist.

Though this is where I grit my teeth and then declare that humorous, accessible, and entertaining need not mean "lighter," in the sense of less serious. In fact, I'd say that a serious book, even a dark book, can be funny and wildly entertaining.

I was attending on lecture on how to be an author in Canada a few weeks ago (A guest speaker came to visit the university, so there was a free lecture you could attend). She was explaining how these Canadian literature was cyclical. About 5-10 years ago, Canadian literature was very popular abroad, and it was easier to find a publisher for a book set in Canada. Now the responses you get is 'I could publish this if it was not set in Canada/ Not another book in Canada'. She believes it will flip back eventually, and that it is a sort of cycle that publishers seem to go through.

#28 Iudita -
I agree with you. Sometimes I feel "Canlit" just means depressing and disfunctional too. Maybe we're all to blame - when I read Best Laid Plans I loved it but didn't think it had a chance to win Canada Reads because it wasn't "serious" enough. I'm glad it won and I've recommended it to so many people. And in spite of its humour, I find that with an election coming, I yearn for an Angus MacClintock to vote for.

#28 - In reference to the popularity of CanLit, I can only say that so many of Canada's really good books are terribly serious, oppresive, depressing and always seem to focus on very dysfunctinal people and families. Having said that, I like to read "Canadiana" and some of my favourite authors are Canadian but the selection of great stories that are not really dark is limited. I may be really wrong in the following opinion....but I always get the impression that Canadian writers are trying very hard to be taken seriously and therefore are always trying to write the next great tragedy. When I read, the things I appreciate the most are excellent stories and really well developed characters and there is a lot of that in Canadian lit. but I can only handle so much abuse, incest and dysfunction without coming up for air.

Very interesting! Since you posted this, I've been mentally comparing your comments to the CanLit that I've read, and I'm coming up blank. Now, mind you, a lot of people find books depressing that I don't, so perhaps I'm a poor judge. But of my top CanLit reads, the only book that I would wholeheartedly put in your category is A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (an off-the-scales depressing book, in my opinion. Very well done, but devastating.) And really, Mistry might be Canadian now, but that book is purely Indian. So I'm coming up blank with dark, depressing, dysfunctional Canadian fiction. In comparison to other countries--is the serious literature coming out of the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, India, Nigeria(naming all the countries I can think of that publish in English)--is their literary fiction any lighter, or more fun? I don't know, but I doubt it. I think it's just the way literary fiction is in 2011.

Just one more comment to illustrate my point . . . a few years ago I bought 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, just for fun. No, I don't need anyone to tell me what books to read. And I have no plans to read anywhere close to all 1001 book (which, in English, is impossible anyway). I belong to the 1001 Books group here at LT, and we have an ongoing list of non-depressing books from the list. It's a short list. Important Literature and Art tend to cover Serious Subjects. It's hard to do "light" well. Hence, few comedies win the major film awards. So I really don't think it's a CanLit thing.

36: Interesting point! I may have to check out the list of 'non-depressing' books at some point. Kind of sad that you have to make a seperate sublist to find them :P

>34 arcona:, 35, 37

Regarding some Can Lit as "depressing", I saw reference to a study comparing novels in which the central plot involved a revolt against a father. The revolts in the Canadian novels usually failed and the ones in the American novels usually succeeded.

I don't know how reliable the study was, but I'm pretty sure it was in a refereed journal. I could probably dig up the reference.