Julian Heddy writes that the “overwhelmingly monolingual culture that prevails” in the UK “accounts for the insularity that informs (or skews) contemporary cultural life” (Letters, 27 September). This ignores the advantage that English has over other European languages, namely that writers in English come from a far wider variety of cultures.
The aftermath of imperialism gives us English-language writers from every continent. A great deal of cultural diversity is represented in the literature of the US, for example, or in the wealth of Indian writing in English. And come to that, British society is hardly homogeneous.
British cultural life may suffer from insularity, but if it does it’s a choice; it’s not caused by insufficient literature in translation.
John Wilson
London
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