Wait, is getting really rich the standard? Because not all languages are equal in their ability to ring this bell at any given time. Right now, English is king—its the lingua franca of half the world or more, and has a disproportionate number of populous rich countries using it as their first language—America is conspicuously important in this regard.
Writers in other languages are at a severe disadvantage in terms of ability to cash in on their local popularity and influence. I understand that Russia, for instance, takes poetry very, very seriously; but its legal and economic system is not capable of giving its poets their honors in the form of money. For example, Yevgeny Yevtushenko is a big deal, and he’s not starving as far as I can tell. But neither does he make anything like a tenth of what cheesy American hack (not hacker—the bad, journalistic kind of hack) Dan Brown makes.
Speaking of Dan Brown—he’s a huge financial success, but he’s the non-thinking man’s version of Umberto Eco, who, from a financial point of view, made the extremely unwise decisions to be Italian and not to pander to the lowest common denominator among his potential readers.
Wait, is getting really rich the standard? Because not all languages are equal in their ability to ring this bell at any given time. Right now, English is king—its the lingua franca of half the world or more, and has a disproportionate number of populous rich countries using it as their first language—America is conspicuously important in this regard.
Writers in other languages are at a severe disadvantage in terms of ability to cash in on their local popularity and influence. I understand that Russia, for instance, takes poetry very, very seriously; but its legal and economic system is not capable of giving its poets their honors in the form of money. For example, Yevgeny Yevtushenko is a big deal, and he’s not starving as far as I can tell. But neither does he make anything like a tenth of what cheesy American hack (not hacker—the bad, journalistic kind of hack) Dan Brown makes.
Speaking of Dan Brown—he’s a huge financial success, but he’s the non-thinking man’s version of Umberto Eco, who, from a financial point of view, made the extremely unwise decisions to be Italian and not to pander to the lowest common denominator among his potential readers.