Taxing Knowledge
Books are slammed with a 19% tax in Chile, the highest tax on books in the world. This tax is nearly twice what the author earns from the sale of each book. In the United States, books are taxed at well under 10%. In most other Latin American countries, books aren’t taxed at all. The book tax in Chile was imposed after 1973 by Augusto Pinochet (who, by the way, has recently suffered a legal title change in primary textbooks, demoted from “dictator” to “military regime.”)
The consequences of the book tax for print literature have been grave. Readership is way down and people aren’t buying books. They are, however, using the internet. Chile has the highest internet usage per its population in South America, beating out even Brazil and Argentina. The most frequent internet activity is checking one’s email. 9 out of 10 internet users have Facebook, but more and more of these users are also accessing their news online.
As a writer who is interested in publishing in both Chile and the United States, these statistics offer a practical lesson. I’m realizing that an important part of being a writer is more than just “knowing your audience.” You have to know how your audience is accessing what its reading. If I want my work to be read in Chile, print publishing is clearly not the way to go. Yet its hard to find online venues that pay authors.
This dilemma has guided me to the study of literary journalism and those writers whose brief but essay-driven prose have been published in Chile and Spain’s major newspapers. That is to say, good nonfiction is alive in Chile’s press. In 1997, Jorge Teillier started a piece for Chile’s most read widely-read newspaper, El Mercurio, with an anecdote about his childhood: “Allow me to remember a summer afternoon in Lautaro, my childhood town….” Jorge Edwards published this opening sentence of his literary chronicle “The Legends of Mississippi” in the national newspaper El Pais in 1982: “We were in the town of Oxford, Mississippi, in the south of the United States, together for an international conference about Yoknapatawpha and William Faulkner.” Just today, guest columnist and director of the National Museum of Barcelona, Manuel Borga-Villel, published a literary essay about artist Antoni Tápies, also in El Pais, called “This Unspeakable Magic.”
Literary journalism does not have a very large market in Chile, but it is an appealing option for a writer abroad. Is it also a realistic option for nonfiction writers in the United States?
Works Consulted
Impuesto al libro, impuesto al conocimiento http://www.elciudadano.cl/2009/03/04/6354/impuesto-al-libro-impuesto-al-conocimiento/
Chile cambia “dictadura” por “régimen militar” http://www.museodelaresistencia.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=394:chile-cambia-qdictaduraq-por-qregimen-militarq&catid=62:internacionales&Itemid=224
Internet Usage South America http://www.internetworldstats.com/south.htm
Interesting stuff here, Summer. The NYT publishes what I’d call some literary journalism — mostly in the Sunday magazine, but also sometimes as op eds.
Yes. Here’s a mighty fine example: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/magazine/john-jeremiah-sullivan-ireland.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hp&fb_source=message
I’m not much of a non-fiction-ista, but I believe the New Yorker is mostly comprised of literary journalism. Correct me if I’m wrong, Somebody, Everybody. The New Yorker is fairly wildly popular.
It’s so good to hear from you, Summer.
Great post Summer. I think there are tons of markets for literary journalism in the States. Harpers and The New Yorker are probably the two most known publications, but there are tons more. Mother Jones and The Atlantic just popped into my head, but there are also more glossy magazines that publish literary essays. Outside is one of them. And as Sam says, newspapers like NYT does as well.
I’m curious about the tax on books in Chile and it influences book buying. How widely spread are e-books?
Yes, I have thought of the NYT, Harpers, etc. How about smaller, more accessible publishing options for a new-to-the-scene writer? Good to know that AWP is just around the corner!
Of course, the tax on books is not the only reason why readership is down. It is, however, at the very least symbolic. Pinochet was in power for 16 years, which means that an entire generation was raised under severe censorship. As for e-readers, I have never seen anyone other than foreign travelers using them. I’ll be curious to see how long it takes for the technology to arrive in Chile.
Alternative Weeklies, like the Inlander in Spokane. Every city has one.