And the intensive and detailed feature article Nicholas Seeley wrote on THE APEX BOOK OF WORLD SF continues! In this second installment, Mr. Seeley interviews many of the WORLD SF authors on a series of specific questions about nationality, the world speculative fiction market, and the influence of culture on readers and writers. Here’s just a small piece of that interview:

“2. Do you think speculative fiction reflects a national identity or national preoccupations?

Han Song (Chongqing, China):

[Speculative fiction] reflects a national identity or national preoccupations by centering on a country’s unreal or parallel history. It depicts the remote future of a nation and makes people reexamine their current life, so as to increase or decrease their confidence. Sometimes it lights the fire of nationalism. It spreads a country’s unique philosophy, shared only by its people. In China this genre is often used by the government to create a platform for cultivating the youngsters who are expected to make contributions to the country. Publishers are reluctant to print books depicting a collapsed China in the future.

Zoran Živković (Belgrade, Serbia):

As far as I know, the term “speculative fiction” is used only in the English language countries. And even in English it is not a literary theory term, but just an invention of the publishing industry. The same is with another publishing industry label: “fantasy.” There is no equivalent for it in other languages either. In this part of the world we use the generic term “fantastika.” It has a very long and fruitful tradition in Europe. . . .

The simplest definition of fantastika is that it is non-realistic, non-mimetic fiction. There are many forms of fantastika. Epic fantastika, mythic fantastika, folklore fantastika, oniric fantastika, fairy tale fantastika and so on—all the way to its twentieth century incarnations: science fantastika (or, as you know it, science fiction) and speculative fantastika (speculative fiction). (The publishing industry label “fantasy” is actually a low-level hybrid of epic fantastika and fairy tale fantastika.)

Among the bards of fantastika from Central and Eastern Europe are certainly E. T. A. Hoffmann, Franz Kafka, Mikhail Bulgakov, Stanislaw Lem—to name just a few.

It is nearly as old as the literacy itself. The Epic of Gilgamesh is among the earliest works of literature and it is full of fantastical elements. It is estimated that almost 75 percent of everything that has been written in the last 5,000 years is one or other form of fantastika. Realistic fiction is of a relatively recent origin and, in a certain sense, its mimetic nature betrays the very essence of the art of prose: inventing something that doesn’t exist. Our ability to imagine, to fantasize, is probably our most fundamental trait that makes us truly unique.

As for my “fantastika,” it doesn’t reflect anything “national.” It is a highly individual discipline . . . The global position of my country or its recent history has absolutely nothing to do with my work. I would have written the same books even if I had lived in Switzerland or among Eskimos.”

Read the whole article here!