Notable writers who have written in an L2 ("Exophony")

[sirgregory]

I was looking at a copy of Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini. Sabatini wrote all his novels in English, although when I looked up his bio I found out that he was born in Italy to an Italian father and English mother. Wikipedia says English was his sixth language (which I'm not sure I believe, but it does seem that English was not his native language). "He consciously chose to write in his adopted language, because, he said, 'all the best stories are written in English'."

This got me thinking about other notable examples of writers who published major works (especially literature) in a language other than their native one. The first example that came to my mind was Vladimir Nabokov who wrote in his native Russian through the 1930s but switched to English later in his career. It seems he had an elite trilingual upbringing (Russian, French, and English). The second example I thought of was the Czech writer Milan Kundera who switched to writing in French in the mid-90s after having lived in France for around 20 years. I struggled to come up with more examples, though I was sure there were many. The other one I got on my own was Baroness Emma Orczy who was born in Hungary but moved to London around age 14 and eventually wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel in English.

I did some web searches and learned that this phenomenon is known as exophony.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exophony

Joseph Conrad is another great example I should have thought of immediately but did not. He published classic works in English, despite it being his third language (after Polish and French).

It seems most of the examples are, unsurprisingly, expats who wrote in the language of their adopted countries. So then perhaps it is equally interesting to look at the opposite phenomenon, writers who remained loyal to their native languages even many years after leaving. There are many English language writers who spent a lot of time or permanently relocated abroad, especially to France, but exophony seems relatively rare among this group. There are some exceptions such as Oscar Wilde who wrote one play in French. Samuel Beckett is a really notable exception as he evidently had some aesthetic preference for writing in French. For a non-English example, I don't know if this is the best one, but Jorge Luis Borges spent many years away from his native Argentina and died in Switzerland. He knew at least a couple of other languages, yet he always wrote in his native Spanish.

https://www.americathebilingual.com/oth ... their-own/

[DaveAgain]

It seems most of the examples are, unsurprisingly, expats who wrote in the language of their adopted countries. So then perhaps it is equally interesting to look at the opposite phenomenon, writers who remained loyal to their native languages even many years after leaving.

I watched a Georges Simenon interview earlier. He wrote in French, despite living abroad for many years. Even setting a story outside France/Belgium seems to have been a big thing for him.

I think Hannah Arendt switched her writing from German>English after moving to the USA. Stefan Zweig I think also wrote in different languages.

There was a polish novel written in French, Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse.

Going back further, within Europe writing for an international/literate audience often meant writing in Latin. The hoch-deutsch of Martin Luther's bible was an artificial language intended to bridge a range of German dialects.

EDIT
Vicki Baum moved from Germany>Hollywood, and I assume wrote her USA scripts in English, but I don't know.

Arthur Koestler wrote in German and English.

[rpg]

I think you've hit just about all the famous examples, but one recent notable case is Jhumpa Lahiri, who has recently been publishing in Italian. She wrote a book about the experience, In altre parole, which I haven't read but I suspect many on this forum would enjoy.

[Deinonysus]

The first that came to mind is Scottish Nobel nominee William Auld, who mainly wrote in Esperanto, which he started learning at the age of 18.

There are also many authors who write in linguae francae, such as Latin (e. g. Erasmus) or Classical Arabic (such as Persian polymath Al-Khwarismi's book that coined the term algebra, al-jabr).

Also, Chinua Achebe apparently learned English at the age of 8.

[Le Baron]

Ágota Kristóf only started 'studying' French after age 26 and seemed to write all her novels in French.

[Querneus]

There are also many authors who write in linguae francae, such as Latin (e. g. Erasmus) or Classical Arabic (such as Persian polymath Al-Khwarismi's book that coined the term algebra, al-jabr).

Yeah, the list of notable L2 writers could get very long if we include medieval and early modern Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit and Literary Chinese writers... From Bede to Safi al-Din al-Hindi to Kim Si-seup.

An interesting case is Moses de León (13th century), likely author of the Zohar, who wrote in what I've seen described as a haphazard kind of Aramaic, as if Moses utilized bits of Jewish Aramaic from here and there that he had been exposed to and learned unsystematically. Moses pretended it was an old book dating to the ancient Roman era, and the Zohar went onto becoming an important work of Jewish mysticism. Sometimes you don't even need to be particular good at a language if you can succeed at passing off your forgery.

[rpg]

The first that came to mind is Scottish Nobel nominee William Auld, who mainly wrote in Esperanto, which he started learning at the age of 18.

The "nominated for the Nobel" things is Esperantist propaganda, for a few reasons.

One, there are countless individuals and institutions who are permitted to submit a nomination each year and as a result getting a nomination doesn't necessarily mean much if the committee was never going to take it very seriously.

Two, the list of nominees for the prize in a given year is sealed for 50 years and the earliest year that it is claimed Auld was nominated was 1999. The nominations for this year are not public and so anyone claiming this or that person was nominated is just trying to push a narrative. The articles that claim he was nominated never identify the basis for this claim, which would have to be sourced to the nominator themselves were it true.

In this particular case the narrative is obvious--Esperanto enthusiasts looking to claim more legitimacy for Esperanto as a language of literature.

I've never read his work and it's possible it's exemplary, but this particular claim irritates me whenever I see it.

[dubendorf]

I think you've hit just about all the famous examples, but one recent notable case is Jhumpa Lahiri, who has recently been publishing in Italian. She wrote a book about the experience, In altre parole, which I haven't read but I suspect many on this forum would enjoy.

Oh that's fascinating. I love her books, but hadn't heard about that. It appears she has translated many of her books (from Italian to English or English to Italian). Reading those might be a fun bilingual resource. I'll have to check out In altre parole.

[guyome]

Romain Gary comes to mind. Born in Vilne (then in the Russian Empire) in 1914, moved to France in 1928 and wrote in French.

Josette Bruce may also qualify, as she was born in Poland in 1920 and subsequently wrote 143(!) novels in French, taking over the OSS 117 series after the death of her husband. I don't know at what age she moved to France though or what kind of linguistic education she may have received in Poland.
I recently listened to an interview she did in 1973, in which she speaks perfect French.

So then perhaps it is equally interesting to look at the opposite phenomenon, writers who remained loyal to their native languages even many years after leaving.

That may be harder to pinpoint. For instance, almost every Yiddish author writing after 1945 could qualify I feel, as well as almost every Yiddish writer in the US/South America/etc. before WWII.

[Deinonysus]

The first that came to mind is Scottish Nobel nominee William Auld, who mainly wrote in Esperanto, which he started learning at the age of 18.

The "nominated for the Nobel" things is Esperantist propaganda, for a few reasons.

One, there are countless individuals and institutions who are permitted to submit a nomination each year and as a result getting a nomination doesn't necessarily mean much if the committee was never going to take it very seriously.

Two, the list of nominees for the prize in a given year is sealed for 50 years and the earliest year that it is claimed Auld was nominated was 1999. The nominations for this year are not public and so anyone claiming this or that person was nominated is just trying to push a narrative. The articles that claim he was nominated never identify the basis for this claim, which would have to be sourced to the nominator themselves were it true.

In this particular case the narrative is obvious--Esperanto enthusiasts looking to claim more legitimacy for Esperanto as a language of literature.

I've never read his work and it's possible it's exemplary, but this particular claim irritates me whenever I see it.

Thanks for the critical thinking check! I'd gotten into my head that he actually WON a nobel, but then I checked Wikipedia and saw that he was simply "nominated." That did perk my ears up but I didn't follow the line of thinking to its logical conclusion and check what the actual sources were for his being nominated.