Category talk:Novels by country

Question on nature of country

2012-05-07. Preceding discussion is all about the nationality of a novel, not the nature of a country or nation as a basis for classification, so I have given it all the new heading (National novels).

On the nature of country --or nation, and explicit cat by nation rather than country seems to be the rule around here-- see Category talk: British children's writers. (That page is valuable partly because, like this one, there is some discussion by past editors, not only a comment or question by me.)

See also the entire hierarchy topped by Category: British literature, where there are English, Scottish, or Welsh subcategories of most British subcategories. See also Category: European novels, defined by a super-nation or super-region. If and where we classify by sub-nations or -regions (the USAmerican South), or by trans-nations/regions (Native American), see those too! --P64 (talk) 16:51, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Category: Categories by country preface (quote):

For non-people, non-culture articles. For people and cultural articles, see Category:Categories by nationality.

Not all of the countries in these subcategories are fully sovereign or currently exist (see "Other states" in List of sovereign states#Other states).

Category: Categories by nationality preface (quote):

People and cultural articles that are predominantly categorized by nationality.

See also Categories by country for non-people, non-cultural articles.

--P64 (talk) 18:42, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

National novels

Are these novels by country of origin, or by country they take place in? There should be some explanation. -- LGagnon 22:19, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Very definitely, country of origin. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 09:12, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Preface. For six years (since 02:09, 27 April 2006‎ Cuchullain) this category does have the minimal preface, "This category lists novels by their country of origin." That's more and better than many similar categories but the discussion shows that keywords without bluelinks need explanation. -P64 2012-05-07

More ambiguity: country of publication, or country of the author? Notice that Category:British novels states that it's about novels by British authors, not novels published first in Britain. Aristophanes68 (talk) 00:11, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I would say country of the author. A novel can be published in various countries. Of course, an author could belong to more than one country, but that's less common than publishing. Kathyfeller (talk) 05:47, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

First publication in multiple countries (co- or simultaneous publication) is relatively new, I think.

How important is decidability as a criterion for category design? I suspect that we (tend to?) classify by author, and we (tend to?) classify authors by birth, because those principles of classification are unusually decidable without much research and without any judgment, aka original research. And so we (tend to) classify by nation in the sense of current EU or UN members (UK/British; Russian, and formerly Soviet).

Granting that we categorize books by nationality of the author, and that Susan Cooper became English-born American (cf. Anne McCaffrey became American-born Irish) at what point in her career should we call her books American rather than English? Should there be principles such as book series inaugurated in England, books undertaken in England, books undertaken within some timespan after emigration from England, ... some time after emigration defined by naturalization, citizenship, marriage, child-bearing or -rearing, etc? Does it matter whether a book written some time after emigration is low fantasy (set in our world) with a setting that she knew as a girl, etc?

Has this been discussed elsewhere?

Is there and should there be a close relation or even identity across nationalistic description (what we say inline), categorization by nation (the main point here), and how we complete the 'Country' field of {{infobox book}}? I have completed or corrected many infoboxen by providing the country of publication, per infobox documentation (country :: Country of original publication). It may be reasonable to describe and categorize books (or specifically novels) as national, by a different principle. If we do that, it should be explained and emphasized. --P64 (talk) 17:02, 7 May 2012 (UTC)