Fiction genres in your languages?

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Quibono
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Fiction genres in your languages?

Postby Quibono » Thu Oct 07, 2021 4:48 pm

What genres are thriving in your language right now?
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Cavesa
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Re: Fiction genres in your languages?

Postby Cavesa » Thu Oct 07, 2021 5:46 pm

Welcome to the forum! And you start with such an interesting question right away. Thanks!

French: fantasy and scifi are thriving, fantasy a bit more than scifi these days, but both are strong. French offers perhaps the most complete offer from YA books up to rather demanding, original, and complex works, that would definitely shine even on a canon list. Crime novels are always popular and of good quality, thrillers too. BDs (comic books) are one of the fields, where French really shines and even creates genres. I don't think comedy novels or short stories are that strong, but that is just compared to my high expectations from a literature this size. You'll still find many good books. High literature and classics are of course numerous. Historical fiction is still quite rich, but I wouldn't say it is the most popular genre these days.

Spanish: much less fantasy and scifi, but there are still some very good authors, it's a growing trend. Magical realism is typical of Spanish, something between fantasy and high literature, depends on how do you want to look at it. High literature and classics are definitely there, crime novels, historical fiction, all that is very popular. BDs seem to be mostly translated, but there are also a few original authors worth noticing.

Italian: very little fantasy and scifi, most authors in these genres focus on YA, but there is some growth in the amount and quality of fantasy, and the Italians seem to finally draw from their tradition while letting their imagination roam in this direction. Curiously, I've noticed quite a lot of fantasy books in a store, that had been first published on an online platform, perhaps it's a new trend. Il Giallo (crime, thriller) is always thriving in the Italian bookstores, historical fiction has a sure place too. Classics and high literature lovers will be happy in an Italian library too.

German: much less fantasy, but still some good and internationally known authors, almost no scifi. Crime novels and thrillers are the most popular genres now, it seems. Historical fiction seems to be doing ok.

Czech: fantasy and scifi are thriving, so are crime novels (in the Czech literature, they are more "Agatha Christieish" than "thrillerish"), short stories, comedy, historical fiction. There are very few classical novels, and even the canonical literature is mostly not that great, with some exceptions. But there are still some authors, that will satisfy a demanding reader. Lovers of some of the lower genres may be just as happy with Czech as they could be with Italian or German imho. It really depends on your interests.

And I'd like to add one literary language that I know only in translation: Polish: lovers of fantasy, scifi, and BDs/comic books should definitely consider it!
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Re: Fiction genres in your languages?

Postby Yunus39 » Fri Oct 08, 2021 5:17 am

Bangla has a rich literary history.
The most popular genres are romances (often featuring adultery or love triangles), mysteries, science fiction, and horror. Fantasy is less popular in literature as far as I can tell, but in film Hindu-based fantasy stories featuring reincarnation across time seem quite popular. I have yet to run across one in literature though. Horror stories based on Hindu black magic or Islamic themed demonic possession seem popular.

Who-dunnits are very popular though and Bengali has a couple of detectives that rival the popularity of Poirot or Holmes. Byomkesh Bakshi and Feluda (Prodesh C. Mitter). The two most popular writers in Bangladesh, Humayun Ahmed and Muhammad Zafar Iqbal wrote a lot of science fiction, and I hope to dive into their novels soon.
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Re: Fiction genres in your languages?

Postby QueenBee » Fri Oct 08, 2021 9:19 am

Cavesa wrote:French: fantasy and scifi are thriving, fantasy a bit more than scifi these days, but both are strong. French offers perhaps the most complete offer from YA books up to rather demanding, original, and complex works, that would definitely shine even on a canon list. Crime novels are always popular and of good quality, thrillers too. BDs (comic books) are one of the fields, where French really shines and even creates genres. I don't think comedy novels or short stories are that strong, but that is just compared to my high expectations from a literature this size. You'll still find many good books. High literature and classics are of course numerous. Historical fiction is still quite rich, but I wouldn't say it is the most popular genre these days.


Recommendations for contemporary French fantasy?

Also, @jammon39, your posts on this forum (including your log) are making me sooo curious about Bangla!
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Re: Fiction genres in your languages?

Postby DaveAgain » Fri Oct 08, 2021 10:13 am

QueenBee wrote:Recommendations for contemporary French fantasy?
There's a French youtuber you might like, "Les mots de l'imaginaire", she does lots of fantasy/scifi reviews, one of which was devoted to French authors Recommandations auteurs de l'Imaginaire français.

I bought one of the books she mentioned, la trilogie des elfes which I thought was pretty good :-)
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Re: Fiction genres in your languages?

Postby Cavesa » Sat Oct 09, 2021 10:33 am

QueenBee wrote:Recommendations for contemporary French fantasy?


These are great, I've loved their books:
Michel Robert, Pierre Pevel, Pierre Grimbert, Charlotte Bousquet, Fabien Clavel, Estelle Faye, Erik l'Homme, Alain Damasio, Maxime Chattame

And here are some I haven't read yet, but definitely plan to:
Nathalie Dau, Pierre Bordage, Jean-Phillipe Jaworski, Christelle Dabos

And there are many more to discover (I've surely forgotten to mention even some I've read). Some of these are for older kids (l'Homme), most are really for adults (Robert or Bousquet), some are more after historical fantasy (Grimbert or Pevel), some urban fantasy (Clavel), some high fantasy (Pevel), etc. Some are a bit between genres, sometimes also going a bit into scifi etc.
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Re: Fiction genres in your languages?

Postby DaveAgain » Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:40 am

DaveAgain wrote:
QueenBee wrote:Recommendations for contemporary French fantasy?
There's a French youtuber you might like, "Les mots de l'imaginaire", she does lots of fantasy/scifi reviews, one of which was devoted to French authors Recommandations auteurs de l'Imaginaire français.

I bought one of the books she mentioned, la trilogie des elfes which I thought was pretty good :-)

EDIT
There's a festival d'imaginales, which produces a collection of short fiction, published by Mnemos.
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Re: Fiction genres in your languages?

Postby Iversen » Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:50 am

I learnt a new word there -"imaginales"
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Re: Fiction genres in your languages?

Postby DaveAgain » Sat Oct 09, 2021 2:49 pm

Iversen wrote:I learnt a new word there -"imaginales"
Are you offering a reward? A Louis d'or? :-)
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Re: Fiction genres in your languages?

Postby Iversen » Sat Oct 09, 2021 4:35 pm

That would be an imaginary reward - and in the far future.
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