It seems
that the only thing literary (?) agents are interested in these days, are bestsellers.
Shouldn’t they purify their identity and change it to book agents? A lot of
agencies claim on their websites that they are looking for real character
driven plots, writing that’s crisp and sparkling and more literary cliché’s.
When you take a look at the list of authors they represent it’s often the
would-be J.K.Rowling, a fake Dan Brown (who perhaps is the real Dan Brown),
fantasy stuff that would make Tolkien roll over in his grave and erotic books without
any nuances. Literature means: books, poems, etc. that are considered to be
art:
Don’t
get me wrong. It is okay that there’s fantasy, science fiction, horror, erotica,
youth, chicklit or whatever. It’s the pretentious way agents say they represent
literature that annoys me. Let them say honestly: ‘If Proust came knocking on my
door, I wouldn’t open it.’
David de
Wolf, author of Solace of Stone
