Re: Who creates literature?
In unequal and divided societies, it’s usually the privileged and middle class writers that dominate the literary world. This is simply because of two main reasons: they have access to good education and they can afford to take writing as a hobby and profession. Usually the writers write about their lives, their own world, and since vast majority of literary figures and contemporary writers belong to privileged and middle class, the literature, as a result is heavily dominated by elitist and middle class culture.
I don’t necessary believe that you need to have ‘in depth’ knowledge to write about particular class or group. Good fiction writers by default are exceptional observers, most upper class writers had managed to create perfectly accurate and believable working class characters and settings by just critically observing the real life people around them and by practicing meticulous adherence to details. As a fiction writer, you don’t have to have scholarly knowledge about certain subject in order to write about it, what you really need to have is some degree of authority on the subject and that comes best in form of life experience in the related subject. My personal preference is that whenever you write about a group of people so different from your own, you must employ healthy levels of humanity, empathy and realism.