I'm not comfortable with categorizing my own work, but I don't mind if others talk about it in relation to genre as long as they don't try to hold it up to some genre standard.
Karin TidbeckI can write a story in working-class Stockholm Swedish, but I'm not going to assume I can perform the same feat with Cockney. I'll focus on adventures in story, themes and structure instead.
Karin TidbeckTime is built entirely on consensus: humans decide that they have linear time, so they do.
Karin TidbeckSome stories I write in Swedish, some in English. Short stories I've almost exclusively written in English lately, mostly because there's such a small market for them in Sweden and it doesn't really pay either. So, the translation goes both ways. What also factors in is that I have a different voice in English, which means that a straight translation wouldn't be the same as if I'd written it in English originally.
Karin TidbeckSome of my other stories are talked about as fantasy, some as horror, and some aren't talked about as genre at all. And the same story will be labeled differently depending on country.
Karin TidbeckI come from a nation where fantastic fiction has a very low status, unless it fits into some very specific categories or is written by already established authors. I don't by any means try to hide what I write, but the way people think in categories here is pretty extreme: it blots out discussing the actual work on its own terms. That's made me loath to talk about my own work in terms of genre, because once you get a label, it sticks and poof go a slew of potential readers and reviewers because eww, fantasy cooties.
Karin Tidbeck