Crossing Borders in Language and Life
How writing in English—and traveling the world—made me a more daring author
By Claire Polders
I have many reasons for writing in English. I love the language, its words, grammar, and idioms. My husband is from the U.S. and the majority of my friends don’t comprehend my mother tongue. Most of the books, essays, newsletters, and stories I read are written in English. There are 360 million native speakers of English versus 21 million native speakers of Dutch, and I enjoy being read. I’m one of those authors who writes for her readers and dreams of a worldwide audience. Besides, who can resist falling victim to linguistic imperialism?
Still, it took me years to give myself permission to switch from Dutch to English. Doing so suggested hubris, and I was human after all: I feared failure.
The Dutch have an expression: “Doe maar gewoon dan ben je al gek genoeg.” (“Just act normal, because you’re already strange enough.”) It’s meant to encourage people not to stand out or nurture immodest ambitions.
When I first added an information page in English to my then Dutch website, I received negative remarks from Dutch male authors. The audacity to think that I could be of interest to an international audience! Was being Dutch and writing in Dutch not good enough for me? And who was I to attempt writing in my second language? Did I fancy myself to be like Joseph Conrad or Vladimir Nabokov?
No, I did not. Perhaps these men did. Or perhaps they were afraid of a young woman who dared to dream so big.
I knew that writing in English would be challenging for me. But I like getting out of my comfort zone. In language and in life.
When my husband and I lost our apartment in Paris, we briefly despaired. We couldn’t afford another place in the city and didn’t know where else we wanted to live. But we soon embraced the opportunities our loss gave us. Our work (writing, editing, producing) did not bind us to one particular place, and without a fixed home and monthly rent to pay, we could roam the world.
Imagine writing from a tatami mat in Japan. With a view of the Andes mountains. To the sound of Galápagos sea lions.
We’ve been living freely as midlife nomads for the past six years.
Similar to our embrace of an international future, I chose not to let the random country of my birth bind me to one language. English doesn’t belong to anyone, not even to the British. It is mine to use to the best of my abilities.
Of course these abilities are limited and not equal to those of native speakers. But there are advantages, too, to writing in a language that feels fresh, estranged. English invites me to explore and experiment, to take my writing in directions previously ignored.
I found it easier to write about sex, for example. The artifice of English led me—paradoxically—to be more direct. I shook off my former, shyer self, and explored erotic encounters on the page with as much gusto as my characters did in their lives. I lost the inhibitions I had felt when writing about sex in Dutch.
Not only did I change my writing to English; I let English change me.
My flash fiction collection WOMAN OF THE HOUR: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion is born from this change. In this book, fifty women get a chance to tell their stories with grit and grace.
Not everyone is as privileged as I am. Some people escape their countries because of war, poverty, or climate change. Some may be forced to give up their mother tongue. Their experiences will be very different from mine. But crossing borders was a choice for me. Escaping from my native language felt as liberating as escaping from my native land.
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Claire Polders is a Dutch author of six books and 100+ essays, stories, and book reviews. Her short prose has been published by Tin House, Electric Literature, Prairie Schooner, and Fiction International. She’s working on a memoir about elder abuse in Florida and a multi-generational novel about the dark Dutch colonial past. Her flash fiction collection Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion has just been released from Vine Leaves Press. She publishes a free popular newsletter Wander, Wonder, Write (on Substack) about her nomadic life.
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Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion
★★★★★ “The riveting characters in Woman of the Hour are full of desire, anger, regret, and darkness. Their fragmented lives are tough, but their grit inspires.” Grant Faulkner, executive producer on America’s Next Great Author
A girl changes into a fox in self-defense. An idealist imagines what her new leader should look like, using her pets as reference. Guerrilla gardeners at dawn are sowing life-saving hope. A traveler delights in tasting European chefs. And a cruel ritual for teenage women turns into a revolution.
The fifty stories in this collection transport the reader from an Amsterdam canal to the Oaxacan coast, from a silt-streaked Venice to an imaginary world, from an Icelandic waterfall to a hall of mirrors.
Women play roles to find themselves, resist oblivion, break laws, swallow regrets, take revenge, follow their passions, and eat spiders. They’re everyday women climbing over obstacles and forging life to meet their needs. They dream of connection and find it in peculiar ways. They’re resilient. They’re brilliant. They’re… you.
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Category: On Writing
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