I'd be up for doing the game on the World Map if we REALLY got a lot of response and that many literature lovers involved...

Though for some nations, it'd obviously be difficult...not many authors writing for Antarctica, after all, lol, but I don't know if we'll get 17 who want to play this, so if we do, we can always think up something then...

But for the 7-player Standard Map, I think this could work out rather well and be fun, enough great authors for each nation if Turkey gets the whole Middle East and all that literature...Austria might be the hardest to pull off, given how much Germany dominates that, but hey, Kafka was born in Austria, so the Austrian player could always be him...a Kafka-esque game of Diplomacy, now THAT'S scary!) >:)

@Zmaj:

Lots of authors with exciting lives, but characters could be fun as well.

Yeah, if you had characters, you could populate the entire world map. Even Antarctica ("At the Mountains of Madness," "The Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym").

what do you mean by taking on their persona? don't really get what this entails?

Well, obvious things such as word choice (ie, a Chaucer or Shakespeare character will naturally sound differently and use different words than, say, a D.H. Lawrence or Kurt Vonnegut character) and tone...references could be made...etc...you use your imagination, based on the character (since it seems we're doing characters.)

Shall we start a list of those interested?

@ obiwanobiwan: for Austria Robert Musil ofcourse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Musil

No, Kafka is better. And his character is a roach.

It sounds really good and interesting, alas I am afraid I can't put my name forward, I would not be able to do all 7 countries, but hope you all enjoy the game!

Keep those Turkish suggestions coming.

I would love to join such a game. As a european (an Austrian, to be precise), I think I read sufficient books of the mentioned authors.

How many authors do you need to know :|.

This sounds like it good be a lot of fun, provided everyone dedicated enough effort to the role-playing. Would we be selecting our characters upon learning of our country, assembling the characters corresponding to each country beforehand, or what?

good=could
Freudian nip slip.

Aaaaaaaand here I am again after a day away from this, busy with classes, lol.

OK, looks like we have some interest...

First thing's first:

Do we want to go with the standard 7, or do folks here think we can make 17/there are enough people who want to play this that we could fill 17 slots?

@Fortress Door:

You just need to know an author/character (if we do characters) from whatever country you end up as...

OK. Just wanted to make sure.

So does everyone here want to play?

Yessir

I don't foresee a world game working out, though, nor am I particularly fond of the variant.

Well, if we only have 7 or so that want to play, that's great...

I'm just saying if 15 or so pop up and want to, then we might consider it, but I doubt we'd get that many.

So, so far, the list, officially:

obiwanobiwan
Your Humble Narrator

obiwanobiwan
Your Humble Narrator
Fortress Door

any certain time-era this has to be from?

I´d be up to play, too.
Another question: Do authors, that got citizenship of a country that they immigrated to, count as citizens of this country?

@FD:

No time era, whoever you wish from that nation, so long as they're not "obscure," we'll say (I mean, for England, it doesn't have to be Shakespeare or Dickens or Hamlet or Oliver Twist...but picking someone who wrote one book three hundred years ago and has never been discussed since or so is just absurd, ruins the fun of recognizability.)

obiwanobiwan
Your Humble Narrator
Fortress Door
stranger

4 down, 3 to go...since we're masquerading as people, maybe we can shoot for a Halloween start date?

@stranger:

I'd think so...for instance, T.S. Eliot immigrated from the US to the UK, but he undoubtedly counts as an English poet...we'd probably officially split the credit and call him an Anglo-American or Trans-Atlantic poet in class, and he'd fit in both the US and UK canons, but for our purposes, he'd definitely count as an English poet...

So I think so long as they live a SIGNIFICANT amount of time (that is, not just a few years, it has to be a sizable chunk of their writing life) in a country as an immigrant, they can count for that country.