Posts by René Esaú Sánchez

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

March 29, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Matthew Redman, René Esaú Sánchez, and Wambua Muindi

Literary news from Kenya, Mexico, and the UK!

This week, our editors bring news of literary realms colliding, collaborating, and interchanging in future- and truth-seeking dialogues. In Kenya, a titan in publishing is commemorated, and a Nobel Laureate establishes presence in a Swahili translation. In Mexico, World Poetry Day is celebrated wit aplomb. And in the UK, the London Book Fair brings vital interrogations pertaining to literary translation in the age of AI. Read on to find out more!

Wambua Muindi, Editor-at-Large, reporting from for Kenya

To paraphrase V.S. Naipaul, the world is what it is, and men who allow themselves to become something have a place in it. Such men, when death waylays them, come to define particular eras. Henry Chakava, a pioneer African publisher, is such a man.

On Sunday, March 24, Chakava was laid to rest. For a man who, from a young age and until his untimely demise, redefined publishing in Africa in many ways: publishing in Swahili and promoting publishing in African languages, focusing on educational publishing to promote literacy, diversifying traditional publishing to incorporate new literary thought besides the infamous African Writers Series. With this legacy, his death attracted reverential eulogies from across the book and knowledge industry. He had become the face of African book publishing when he became the managing director of Heinemann Educational Books, which he would eventually steer to a new dispensation under the banner of East African Educational Publishers, and his work endeared him to many in Africa and beyond, attracting global assignments including being named the chairman of Global Book Alliance in 2021. An ode to Chakava, surely, cannot be captured by a word-bound dispatch. All in all, go well, Chakava. READ MORE…

What’s New in Translation: February 2024

February 12, 2024  |  in New in Translation, Reviews  |  by Areeb Ahmad, Christina Chatzitheodorou, and René Esaú Sánchez

New writing from Etel Adnan, Satish Alekar, and Djamila Morani!

This month, our selected titles of new publications carry wisdom, mystery, and humour. Below, find reviews of plays by one of India’s most accomplished and innovative playwrights; a compilation of interview with the inimitable Etel Adnan, conducted by Laure Adler; and a PEN Translates Award-winning novel of revenge and self-discovery, set in the Abbasid period.

alekar

Two Plays: The Grand Exit and A Conversation with Dolly by Satish Alekar, translated from the Marathi by Shanta Gokhale, Seagull Books, 2024

 Review by Areeb Ahmad, Editor-at-Large for India

This nifty volume of plays collects two of Alekar’s works, “Mahanirvan” and “Thakishi Samvad”, written forty-six years apart—Born in 1949, Satish Vasant Alekar is a Marathi playwright, actor, theatre director. He was a founding member of the Theatre Academy of Pune and is well-known plays such as for Mahapoor, Begum Barve, Atirekee, and Pidhijat. He is considered among the most significant playwrights in modern Marathi and Indian theatre, along with Mahesh Elkunchwar and Vijay Tendulkar, and lately, he has come to be recognised for his acting in Marathi and Hindi feature films.

“Mahanirvan” or “The Grand Exit” was first performed in 1974, and is a play where a dead man has more dialogue than any living character. The description on the cover is not wrong to equate the character with Sophocles’ Antigone, for he also strongly insists on the method of his last rites; Bhaurao wants to be traditionally cremated at the shamshan ghat, but the cremation ground is in the process of being privatised. Thus, the dead—or rather their relatives—are now being redirected to a new facility which uses electrical incineration.

So Bhaurao lingers around as his body malingers, rotting and fly-infested, while his wife Ramaa grieves intensely, coming to terms with the sudden loss, and his son, Nana, tries to convince him to just go ahead with the cremation, and pass on. While working on the play, Alekar had realised that a dead man cannot speak prose, so Bhau’s dialogues instead take the poetic form—one resembling keertans (religious recitations). READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

February 9, 2024  |  in Dispatches, Weekly Roundup  |  by Charlie Ng, René Esaú Sánchez, and Sofija Popovska

The latest literary news from Hong Kong, Mexico, and North Macedonia!

This week, our Editors-at-Large explore blockchain publishing, poets’ novels, and literary surrealism. Read on to find out more!

Charlie Ng, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong

In December, Hong Kong independent bookstore Mount Zero Books announced that it will be closing in March 2024 due to anonymous complaints on the bookstore’s “illegal occupation of government land”, and the resulting warning from the Lands Department regarding the tiled platform outside of the bookstore. Mount Zero Books’ experience is not an isolated issue; it is part of the narrowing of Hong Kong’s cultural space under the current political climate, in which independent publishers and bookstores are facing increasing control and censorship. In 2022, for instance, local independent publisher Hillway Press was not allowed to participate in the annual Book Fair organised by Hong Kong Trade Development Council. The publishing house then planned to host a “Hongkongers’ Book Fair” featuring 14 independent local publishers and bookstores in the shopping mall Mall Plus in Causeway Bay. Unfortunately, the book fair was forced to cancel as they were accused of violating the terms of venue use. In December 2023, one of the founders of Hillway Press emigrated and the company decided to close down. What is more, two of Hong Kong’s remaining independent bookstores, Have A Nice Stay and Hunter Bookstore, have said that they face frequent complaints and regular monitoring by government departments.

In light of increasing challenges — both economic and political — faced by the local publishing industry, Hong Kong writers are beginning to explore new means of publishing their works and reaching out to readers. Hong Kong writer Dung Kai-cheung has been counting down to the 15 February publication of his new work, Autofiction, on his own writing platform, Dungfookei. Autofiction will be published in the form of an NFT. The new autobiographical nonfiction is part of the writer’s exploration of the potential of Web3’s blockchain technology for decentralizing publishing and granting more autonomy in user control and ownership of data. In 2023, Dung joined Likecoin — an application-specific blockchain for decentralized publishing developed by Hong Kong entrepreneur Ko Chung-kin — to republish his famous novel Tiangong Kaiwu·Lifelike, which became the first Chinese novel to be published as an NFT. While Tiangong Kaiwu·Lifelike is available for purchase on Likecoin’s website, Dung also developed his own platforms Dungfookei and DKC in Translation to digitalise his works and interact with readers in new ways. Although the project is still experimental, by turning to the web for more freedom and opportunities, Dung’s foray into Web3 and NFT publishing represents an innovative frontier in the evolving landscape of literature and author-reader interaction. READ MORE…

There Must Be a Poem: A Conversation With Alí Calderón, Founder of Círculo de Poesía

February 1, 2024  |  in Interviews  |  by René Esaú Sánchez

. . . this is the best time for poetry: there were never as many readers as there are today. . .

Mexican poet and scholar Alí Calderón is one of the founders of Círculo de Poesía, an online poetry journal that celebrated its fifteenth anniversary in 2023. From the very beginning, the project aimed to diversify the cultural panorama of Mexico and has now established a publishing company that explores world literature. In this interview, I spoke with Calderón about the nature of translation, the importance of dialogue with other cultures, and how publishing can be an alternative to sustain literary projects. 

René Esaú Sánchez (RES): You have mentioned in other interviews that Círculo de Poesía was born as a project to perceive Mexican poetry from other angles. Why was that necessary?

Alí Calderón (AC): When we talk about Mexican poetry, it is a deceiving category; we think of it as something inclusive when it’s not. Just by analyzing the indexes of poetry anthologies or by seeing who receives certain scholarships, we realize that it is more of a cultural elite. 

In 2008, with the birth of the internet and other forms of media, we decided to reinvent culture from other sources. We started working against the tide, promoting poetry from other states of México, like Puebla, Sinaloa or Colima; we decentralized it.

That’s how the journal was born: with the intention of democratizing poetry and making it more visible. But we didn’t do it only with Mexican poetry: we included poetry written in other Spanish-language countries and, out of curiosity, in other world languages.

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

January 19, 2024  |  in Dispatches, Weekly Roundup  |  by Alan Mendoza Sosa, Andriana Hamas, and René Esaú Sánchez

The latest literary news from Mexico and Bulgaria!

This week, our Editors-at-Large take us to bi-national experimental poetry festivals and a community for children’s literature. From prize-winning novels to poetry that spans genres and mediums, read on to find out more!

Alan Mendoza Sosa, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Mexico

On Monday, January 15, Mexican poet Rocío Cerón launched the online series of panels “Diálogos Bifrontes” (Bifrontal Dialogues), alongside digital artist and poet Carlos Ramírez Kobra. Their conversation was the first of several upcoming chats about experimental, transmedial, and expanded poetry, a genre of literature that combines sounds, performance, and visual elements with poetic writing. They talked about how the transformation of poetry into different artistic and sonic registers entails a process of thinking, reflection, and attention that dissolves traditional boundaries between genre, media, and performance. They also reflected on their creative processes, highlighting how their works consist of — paraphrasing Cerón — an infinite codifying and re-codifying of language and symbols.

These Dialogues complement last year’s special, celebratory 13th anniversary edition of Enclave, an annual festival of expanded poetry founded by Cerón, which ran between November 23 and 25. As a bi-national event, Enclave 2023 was co-sponsored by several Mexican cultural institutions and the Goldsmiths University of London, and co-curated by Cerón and the German-British sound artist Iris Garrelfs. It invited collaborations between Mexican and British artists and poets exploring intersections between poetry, sound, music, and visual art.

Diálogos Bifrontes builds on Enclave’s mission of bringing together poets, artists, and musicians. Like the festival itself, the series will feature conversations by cutting-edge poets from Mexico and the U.K. who are redefining what poetry can mean. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

January 5, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Carol Khoury, René Esaú Sánchez, and Sofija Popovska

Literary news from North Macedonia, Mexico, and Palestine!

This week, our editors around the world bring news as to how different literary initiatives and publications are help shaping the present. From writers who embody multiculturalism and unity, to works of solidarity and hope, read on to see how writers, readers, and artists are working to shed light on what matters.

Sofija Popovska, Editor-at-Large, reporting from North Macedonia

“Rarely has any Macedonian poet attracted as much attention among theorists, literary historians, and philologists as [Kočo] Racin. Racin was . . . a pioneer in the artistic expression of the mother tongue, . . . an example of an ideal revolutionary and, in the end, a victim. He was the most honorable and most honored thing that the Macedonians had in the period between the two wars,” writes Goran Kalogjera, a prominent Croatian comparatist and scholar of Macedonian studies in his book, Pogled otstrana. Racin (1908 – 1943) (Side view. Racin (1908 – 1943)). Recently, this important biography was translated into Macedonian by Slavčo Koviloski, and published by Makedonika Litera Press.

Kosta Apostolov Solev is a canonical figure in Macedonian literature, hailed by some as the founder of modern Macedonian poetry. He is best known under his penname, Kočo Racin, which was derived from the name of his lover, Rahilka Firfova-Raca—a gesture indicative of his support for the socialist women’s movement. He himself was a political activist, participating in the translation of the Communist Manifesto into Macedonian, and acting as editor for several communist magazines. His political leanings had contributed to his mysterious and untimely death; mortally shot by a printing-house entrance guard in June 1943, some speculate that Racin had been purposefully targeted by the communist party, having fallen out of favor with them around 1940. However, his activism effectuated his ties to other cultures, enriching his literary oeuvre. Aside from his mother tongue, he wrote texts in Bulgarian and Serbian, and was published all over the Balkans. Kalogjera stresses this multilingual, multicultural aspect of Racin’s output in Pogled otstrana, noting his importance to Croatian culture. READ MORE…

Translating the Non-Existent

November 22, 2023  |  in Essays  |  by René Esaú Sánchez

[W]hat if you wanted to translate a poem that can no longer be found in its original language?

Poems and stories have murky histories—the older, the more obscure. In the following essay, we follow a translation team from the College of Mexico as they work to unearth an ancient love poem by way of its later translations, delving into the question of what constitutes of an original.

It is accepted that our ancient texts do not come to us intact; from the poetry of Sappho to the second part of Aristotle’s Poetics, we can only know these works thanks to quotations or references by many other authors. As such, a question plaguing translators of history remains: what if you wanted to translate a poem that can no longer be found in its original language?

This is precisely the problem facing certain translators from the College of Mexico, who had decided to embark on the colossal journey of translating the first love poems of over fifty languages. Francisco Segovia, the leading editor of Primer Amor, the book that reunites these texts, stated that they actually “wanted to translate the first poems ever written, but it seemed like and unfathomable task, so we focused just on the love poems”. From there, Segovia, along with Adrián Muñoz and Juan Carlos Calvillo, gathered over forty translators, academics, and poets to ensure the texts were not only well translated, but also accompanied by a brief critical comment of the translation work and the poem itself. Included are poems written originally in Sanskrit, Latin, Náhuatl, Awadhi, Medieval French, Tamil, and more, include excerpts from the Bhagavad Gita, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and even Homer.

However, one text in particular was set apart from the others, and required a distinct approach. The “Song of the Serpent” is a poem originally written in Tupinambá, a native language from present-day Brazil. The community has been deeply described in André Thevet’s The New Found World, or Antarctike and in Jean de Léry’s History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil, but the most prominent figure who has written about the Tupinambá was actually Michel de Montaigne; in his essay “Of Cannibals”, he delves into the otherness of the community in an attempt to understand the nations that “are still governed by natural laws and very little corrupted by our own”. As Carlo Ginzburg has pointed out, Montaigne’s unique perspective led him to see Brazilian natives not as animals or savage people, but as “belonging to a distinct and different civilization, although the word civilization did not exist as yet”. Not only that, but Montaigne refused to regard their poetry as barbarian, and defied the paradigms of natural anthropology that deemed American natives as inferior, stating: “I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits.” READ MORE…