This week, our editors from around the globe report on Spanish poetry readings in New York, new Vietnamese translations of classic Japanese novels, and the Gothenberg Book Fair in Sweden. Read on to find out more!
Alan Mendoza Sosa, Editor-at-Large, reporting from New York
Though I usually report from Mexico City, I recently moved to New Haven to begin a PhD program at Yale. However, relocating has not prevented me from engaging with Hispanophone literary communities, particularly in New York City, a creative hub that connects people from all over the world, and where literary readings in Spanish are common.
The first event I attended was a multilingual poetry open mic at the Bowery Poetry Club in Manhattan. Hosted by Spanish poet Marcos de la Fuente, the soirée “Se Buscan Poetas / Poets Wanted” takes place every last Wednesday of the month. It brings together poets from New York and beyond, who sign up to share their work to the Bowery’s attentive audience. I went on Wednesday, August 31, and participated both as spectator and reader among other emerging Spanish- and English-speaking poets. The event opened with a performance by De la Fuente and actress Clara Francesca. They set the mood for the night with a dramatic interpretation of the bilingual poem “Solstice,” published in the anthology Poetryfighters (Ultramarina Editorial, 2022), assembled by De la Fuente himself. The reading was both exhilarating and engaging. Beyond simply voicing words from the book, De la Fuente and Francesca modulated their expressions and walked around the stage in synchrony with the content and rhythm of the text, creating moments of emotional and aural tension that excited the audience, more like a concert or play than a traditional poetry reading. In addition to hosting the monthly open mic, De la Fuente also directs the New York City part of the Kerouac Festival, an international poetry, music, and performance celebration that takes place in Vigo, New York, and Mexico City. Earlier this year, the festival featured the Chilean writer and Asymptote contributor Arelis Uribe.
Two weeks after the Bowery open mic, I went to New York again, this time for the second edition of “Fiesta de la Poesía,” a multilingual and multicultural poetry reading that took place on Sunday, September 18. It was held in Queens, at the bar Terraza 7, in the Jackson Heights neighborhood, famous for being one of the most diverse places in the United States. The event occurred in the evening and was hosted by Argentinian poet and translator Ezequiel Zaidenwerg, who invited poets from Latin America, the U.S., and Nigeria. Awe-inspiring, the international and intercontinental lineup featured Daniel Lipara (Argentina), Eliana Hernández (Colombia), Hernán Bravo Varela (Mexico), Logan February (Nigeria), Mariana Spada (Argentina), Robin Myers (United States), Yaissa Jiménez (Dominican Republic), Paola Senseve (Bolivia), Kachi Nomu (Nigeria), Uche Nduka (Nigeria), and Gbenga Adesina (Nigeria). The atmosphere was vibrant, especially enlivened with Brazilian Jazz music by Portinho Trio, Brazilian Jazz, and Sarah Cabral. In addition to the luminaries on stage, there were other writers in the audience as well, including fresh voices, such as Argentinean novelist Katherina Frangi and Mexican writer Ruy Feben, and seasoned ones, such as Daniel Saldaña Paris and Álvaro Enrigue. All attendees enjoyed the night among cherished friends and colleagues, reunited by their passion for poetry.
Thuy Dinh, Editor-at-Large, reporting on Vietnam and the Vietnamese Diaspora
Hanoi Publishing House in Vietnam has just released Tiếng Núi, the latest Vietnamese translation of Yama no Oto (山の音) (The Sound of the Mountain), Yasunari Kawabata’s indelible 1954 Japanese novel about an elderly man’s intimations of mortality. Uyên Thiểm, its Vietnamese translator, speaks eloquently about the benefits and challenges of translating directly from the Japanese. Historically, Vietnamese translations of Japanese novels were most likely not contractually acknowledged and often based on intermediary English or French versions. But since 2004, when Vietnam became a signatory of the Berne Convention, the majority of literary translations has been legally authorized, rendered directly from the original, and subject to cultural consultation and editorial scrutiny. Uyên Thiểm observes that this transparent approach, besides holding Vietnamese translators to a high professional standard, also allows them to be appreciatively vigilant of the original text. In this case, he becomes attentive to the supple emotional shadings embedded in Kawabata’s succinct prose and borrowed Sinitic vocabulary that may carry different meanings when compared to seemingly similar terms in the Sino-Vietnamese context.
If a direct interface between Japanese and Vietnamese is valued for its nuanced and presumably authentic aspect, the relationship between a former colonizer and its subjects can also be reassessed to foster reconciliation and broaden knowledge. From October 5 through October 8, France-Vietnam: A History of Anthropology—a symposium broadly conceived by the École normale supérieure (ENS) in Paris and the National University of Education in Hanoi—presents a series of talks, held at the Paris Institute for Advanced Studies, on ethnographic encounters between France and Vietnam, with a special emphasis on Vietnamese agency. For instance, Nguyễn Phương Ngọc wishes to analyze the anthropological content of Vietnamese fiction and reportage published during the French colonial era, namely Vang Bóng Một Thời (Echoes From A Golden Time) by Nguyễn Tuân and Tập Án Cái Đình (A Case Against The Village Communal Hall) by Ngô Tất Tố, on the colonized subject’s endeavor to both preserve refined cultural traditions and abolish obsolete, corrupt societal norms. Hoàng Anh Ngọc’s linguistic paper addresses the first-person pronoun “Tôi” (I), whose etymology encompasses both servitude and an assertion of individual freedom. Nguyễn Duy Bình, Vietnamese translator of Phillipe Claudel’s Les Âmes Grises (Grey Souls/By A Slow River), Romain Gary’s La Promesse de l’aube (Promise at Dawn) and Pierre Lemaitre’s Au revoir là-haut (The Great Swindle), plans to discuss the challenges and contributions of today’s Franco-Vietnamese translators.
Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden
This year, on September 22, Scandinavia’s largest book event Gothenburg Book Fair had over 82,000 visitors. Two years ago, the fair could not open to visitors because of COVID restrictions (though some programming was held online), while last year, the number of visitors had to be limited. This year’s numbers didn’t quite reach pre-pandemic levels of around 100,000, but it is nevertheless a great step forward. Since the pandemic, the fair has also become a hybrid event, so around 7,000 online ticket-holders can be added to the 82,000 in-person visitors.
The Gothenburg Book Fair is open to all professionals in the book industry, including publishers, writers, translators, librarians, and teachers, as well as readers and book enthusiasts in general. For four days at the end of September every year, the fair offers thousands of seminars, readings, panels, interviews, and more. This year, more than 700 exhibitors participated in the Fair, and the extensive programming included over 4,000 events. This year’s Guest of Honour––always a country presenting its literature––was South Africa, with the fair partnering with the National Library of South Africa and the South African government’s Department of Sports, Arts and Culture. South Africa was originally planned as the Guest of Honour for 2020, but the program had to be postponed because of the pandemic.
Additionally, the fair also had three themes, which were Crimetime, the Climate Crisis, and Voices of the Ukraine. Crimetime featured both Swedish and international crime writers. It started out as its own book festival seven years ago, but since 2018, it has become part of the Gothenburg Book Fair. For the Climate Crisis theme, the fair partnered with the Stockholm Resilience Centre and the think tank Global Challenge. Ukrainian writers who participated in the fair included poets Daryna Gladun and Lesyk Panasiuk, as well as writers Oksana Zabuzhko, Victoria Belim, and Larysa Denysenko.
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