Getting published has never been an easier work for even the nobel laureates in literature. Then getting acclaimed for their literary piece has always been a never ending war. Mess media has never been unbiased. In a world where the greatest literary works and best seller master pieces got rejected over and over, where the people who provides the most prestigious prizes for literature nominates and awards journalists for writing diaries on the decay of communism over Soviet Union, where great thinkers like Noam Chomsky faces the popular media ban for revealing the way they are treating things which is very Euro-America centric, people who are dreaming of becoming another literary mastermind can surely be considered as one of the most difficult works. Keeping these issues in our mind as our context, we look critically upon the history and rise of online blog spots. Because, with a white eye, we can easily see that the power of controlling the voice of the authors and thinkers is slowly drifting from the hands of media mughals. These online spaces are providing the content creator the opportunity to express their thoughts more or less freely. The filter is much less than those of in print media and popular media. In this age of hyper connectivity, when it is considered as almost suspicious not having a social media account, when each and everyone is always on standby to get interrupted, building up an audience is not an issue as well. Can we really come to this conclusion that at least, through the fluid identity that an author carry on line, the power of expressing thoughts freely has equally been distributed among the content creator and publisher/editor? Are the social networking sites for writers going to replace the need of publication houses or are they just electric sharks that devour everything and keep no lingering impact over the readers? Having Foucault’s ideas regarding power distribution as its theoretical base, and the history of rejection of famous authors and ban of media over thinkers like Chomsky

4. The Fluid Identity of an Author
on Social Media: End of
Publisher’s/Editor’s Supremacy?
Md Shazed Ul Hoq Khan Aabir
Writer and Academic
Department of English
University of Asia pacific

5. Rejection story 1
• “I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a
thousand years.” (response of a publication house)
• Shunned by all major publishers, the author moves
to France and makes a deal with Olympia Press

6. 50 millions of copies sold

7. Rejection Story 2
• “An absurd and uninteresting fantasy which
was rubbish and dull.” -
(Response letter sent by the publishers
approached earlier)

8. 15 millions of copies sold till now

9. Rejection Story 3
• Faced 22 initial rejections before he manages
a publisher somehow
• 379 copies of the first edition was sold, among
them 120 was bought by the author himself

11. Rejection story 4
• Rejected by all publishers in the UK and US,
the author self-publishes his novel in Florence,
Italy, using his own press in 1928.
• After being banned for nearly 30 years Grove
Publishers published the controversial work in
1959. A Penguin edition followed the next
year.

12. The book quickly sells in millions

13. Rejection Story 5
• This particular book was rejected by everyone
except Heinemann.

14. becomes the most widely-read book in
modern African literature.

16. • Alfred A. Knopf Publication house successfully turned down
authors like:
Jack Kerouac
George Orwell
Sylvia Plath
And Mario Puzo’s The Godfather

18. Creativity
vs.
selling your creative products

19. The Paper is divided into 3 parts
• Fluid Identity of Authors
• Attitudes of publishers and mass media
towards writers and scholars
• Doors that blog opens for aspiring
writers and scholars

20. IDENTITY

21. Identity
• “Identity defines who somebody is in terms of
in terms of a trait, for example – a physical
feature of the body, a belief, a genealogy or a
cultural preference. In effect they identify by
placing individuals into groups who share that
trait.” - Simon During ( 2005, p. 145)

22. Identity
• Varies from the point of views of -
• Skin color
• Socio economic status
• Gender
• Nationality
• Region
• Profession
• Generation etc

23. • Identity helps you to identify yourself with a
particular group sharing the same character traits
as yours
“BUT”
• In Cost of your INDIVIDUALITY!!

24. Identity
• Can be given and chosen
• Given identity : ( Woman, Asian, White)
• Chosen identity: ( a conservative, a writer, a
Marxist)

25. A writer’s identity is a chosen one

26. Fluid identity

27. Fluid identity
• A term that’s usually used in discipline of
gender studies
• In queer theory - a person who doesn't want
to bind his/her identity in male or female
stereotypes is called gender fluid. (During,
2005)

28. Fluid Identity of an Author
• When authors identity, such as gender, race,
religion and national identity of an author -
(which s/he cannot subside totally) won't
hinder expressing his/her ideas.

29. Can main stream media provide author
freedom that s/he seeks for?

30. The way mass media rewards

31. Over viewing some recent Nobel
laureates in literature

32. Orhan Pamuk – Nobel Laureate 2006

33. Orhan Pamuk – Nobel Laureate 2006
• known as a sharp critic of the existing Turkey
Government in early 2000, who had a cold
relationship with the US government during
the Iraq war (Turkey–United States relations,
2017)
• Pamuk’s receiving noble has created debate
among the scholars and critics even in Trukey.

34. Orhan Pamuk – Nobel Laureate 2006
• " In his native Turkey many see orhan pamuk,
the 2006 Nobel winner for literature as a
moderately talented writer and an
opportunist who, with his comments on
Turkey's conflict with Armenia, has made a
name for himself at the expense of his own
people" - Dilek Zaptcioglu (2006)

35. Patrick Modiano – Nobel Laureate 2014

37. Patrick Modiano – Nobel Laureate 2014
• Echoes the trauma of Jew genocide in WWII
• Received the Nobel in a year when the Israeli
army bombarded mercilessly on the Palestinians
during the month of Ramadan.
• Was that an attempt to repair the damage of
Israeli image?

38. Svetlana Alexivich – Nobel Laureate 2015

39. Svetlana Alexivich – Nobel Laureate 2015
• A stern critic of Soviet Union
• Voices from Chernobyl – almost a journalistic
feature.
• “For the past 30 or 40 years she has been busy
mapping the soviet and post soviet
individuals" - The Swedish academy

40. Aversion of mainstream media and
writers/scholars/thinkers

41. Chomsky – A Severe Critic of US- Israel
Lobby
• “Chomsky is one of a small band fighting a
whole industry. And that makes him not only
brilliant, but heroic.”
– Arundhati Roy (The Essential Chomsky)

42. • "The Oslo peace agreements were founded on a
neo colonialist basis, on a life of dependence of
one on the other forever".
-Chomsky
“United States – Israel – Palestine”
(article, 2003)
• criticized severely the Israeli-US media that
blamed "The Palestine and their Evil leaders" for
the failure of the talks and the subsequent
violence.

43. • back in May 2010, Chomsky was not allowed to
enter into the occupied West bank by the decision
of Israeli government ran by Benjamin Netanyahu
• He was Supposed to deliver a lecture at a
Palestinian University
• Israeli Media Subsequently called him a “National
Traitor”
• This news was not highlighted by the US media as
well.

44. Edward Said – propagator of Orientalism
and supporter of PLO faced the same
media atrocities

45. Banning books is a common phenomena

46. Aktharuzzaman Elias
• Akhtaruzzaman Elias is one of the most
pioneer writers of post war Bangladesh.
• His write ups challenges readers’ intellect and
makes them think. Not too easy to decode.
• In his earlier days one of his publishers tried to
act like his well wisher and suggested that –
“Koshe Rommo Rochona Poren”

48. BLOG and Online Writing

50. Face book notes turning into blogs:
September, 2015

51. Google plus also offers you a blog acount

52. Doors that the fluid identity of
bloggers opens
• The decentralization of power:
• Less or no censorship
• Minorities can open up easily
• Like minded people can flock up
• Information transfer is easier

53. 1. The decentralization of power

54. 1. The decentralization of power
• "Each society has its regime of truth, its ‘general
politics of truth’ - that is, the types of discourse
which it accepts and makes function as true"
• “These 'general politics' and 'regimes of truth'
are the result of scientific discourse and
institutions, and are reinforced constantly
through the education, the media and the flux of
political and economic ideologies“
- ( Foucault, in Rabinow 1991)

55. 1. The decentralization of power
• An author, being a subject of a government or
nationality, had to be a part of this power game,
or game of "regime of truth" .
• Only in blogs or online persona, a writer can
enjoy the freedom to a larger extant.
• The power baton is shifted to the authors hand
from the hand of editors or the publishers.

56. 2. Less or no censorship

58. 3. Minorities can open up easily

59. 4. Like minded people can flock up

60. 5. Information transfer is easier

61. Loop holes of the fluid identity

62. Loop holes of the fluid identity
• The blog culture here does not have a proper
orientation
• Difficult to bring up serious matters
• View/ like based importance
• Blogs may have their personal agendas

63. A way to solute them
• Use proper tags, hash tags, and appropriate
platforms
• Though it may have its agenda, it will give you
an equal platform to express your thoughts
and ideas, and to defend them.

64. On our way to conclusion
• We are living in a age of hyper connectivity
• It’s a challenge for the writers, thinkers and
scholars that how would the get accustomed
to the coming change and enjoy the freedom!

66. Md Shazed Ul Hoq Khan Abir
shkaabir@gmail.com
aabir@uap-edu.bd
http://www.somewhereinblog.net/b
log/Aaabir

67. References
• Arnove, A. (editor) (2008) The Essential Chomsky, India, Penguin
• During , S. (2005). Cultural studies: A Critical Introduction . (1st
ed.). USA : Routledge
• Elias, A. (2013). Akhtaruzzaman Elias Rochona Shomogro - 3. (3rd
ed.). Bangladesh: Maola Brothers
• Gaventa, J. (2003). Powercube . Retrieved 15th January, 2017, from
https://www.powercube.net/other-forms-of-power/foucault-
power-is-everywhere/

68. References
• Rejections, L. . (2016, 8th June). Best-Sellers Initially
Rejected. [Weblog]. Retrieved 15 January 2017, from
http://www.litrejections.com/best-sellers-initially-rejected/
• Turkey–United States relations. (2017). Wikipedia . Retrieved 20 January,
2017, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey%E2%80%93United_States_relations
• Zantal- weiner , A. (2016 ). HubSpot . Retrieved 15th January, 2017, from
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/history-of-
blogging#sm.0000a79y3pqtlcrkxwk2fclyq66cn
• Zaptcioglu, D. . (2006). Spiegel Online . Retrieved 15 January, 2017, from
http://www.spiegel.de/international/the-lost-son-nobel-prize-winner-
pamuk-divides-turkey-a-442419.html