Dig into “A Fantastic Salad,” the Winter 2020, ninth-anniversary edition of Asymptote, full of tasty morsels across a 31-country flavor spectrum, from tangy treats like interviews with Pulitzer Prizewinner Forrest Gander and Premio Velázquez de Artes Plásticas honoree Cecilia Vicuña, to sizzling entrées such as drama by the great modernist poet Federico García Lorca and nonfiction by Lhashamgyal, a displaced Tibetan in Beijing. Let all palates savor our Kurdish Poetry Feature, honoring a people unjustly endangered by Trump’s betrayal. May daring connoisseurs relish new discoveries in our showcase of 2020 Essay Contest winners, picked by Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee (read the full citations here).

Taking top honors is Jonathan Cohen introducing Dominican poet Pedro Mir—the “Whitman of the Caribbean, for containing the multitudes of his America.” Runner-up Lara Norgaard interviewed Putu Oka Sukanta for her essay situating the Indonesian author’s work against a larger historical context that also explains why it is “unlikely to rise to global fame.” Manuel Antonio Castro Córdoba, on the other hand, celebrates the formal invention of Argentinian writer Alberto Laiseca’s novels, suggesting that “his variety of characters, settings, and references rivals Borges’s encyclopedic world.” 

In our spotlight on Kurdish Poetry, Qubadi Jali Zadeh’s “I Wish I Were a Dog” starts off with a playful premise only to move on to a litany of hardships, in contrast to the simplicity of a dog’s life. Amid suffering, the poet is also alone to face his travails: “I am a mountaineer: I scale / The mountain of my pain,” writes Sherko Berkas. Meanwhile, Venus Faiq evokes the “shards of exile” of a people caught between states: to wit, these poets bear witness not only to universal questions, but also to the specificity of the Kurdish present.

The artists showcased in “The Visual Language of Protest in Iran” also respond to our troubled moment, shortly after the United States’ assassination of Qasem Soleimani. But even the distant past can reflect current times, like when ancient texts are translated for modern audiences. Thus, the eighth-century Chinese poet Bai Juyi, inflected with Joey Schwartzman’s New York sensibility, and the anonymous author of a wild, oneiric horoscope, channeled from the Old Scots by Gnaomi Siemens, speak to us from the depths of bygone eras. Rounding up this theme is Emma Gomis reviewing Etel Adnan’s Time.

Our new issue also honors the textual figure par excellence of proliferation and diversity: the list. Illustrated suggestively by guest artist Simone Rein, Corinne Hoex’s climactic fiction swipes right on a gas station attendant, a sea lion trainer, and a hunter. Russian poet Dmitri Alexandrovich Prigov scrolls through all-too-familiar “Unbelievable Stories,” riffing on our expectations in the genre of the surprising fait divers. Armenian writer Shushan Avagyan’s fragmentary, oracular pronouncements have something of the same perpetual invention. For is not the world, like language, a continually surprising salad whose list of ingredients extends indefinitely?

What has kept it all together these past nine years was a desire to topple hegemony, lift underrepresented voices, and say to marginalized writers, “Take a seat—here you belong.” Not only have we showcased more translations than any other English journal over the same period, I’m proud to say that each new issue, gathering never-before-published writing from upwards of 30 countries, continues to be “a fantastic salad.” But this kitchen of 90 international cooks—only one of them full-time—didn’t just appear out of nowhere. It took years of sacrifice to get us here, but, without the institutional funding that lesser organizations enjoy, all might still vanish overnight. Whether as a reader, author, or translator, if you’ve found this salad to your taste, help us finish out our tenth, milestone year grandly (or at least without financial anxiety): Consider leaving a one-off tip in appreciation of our advocacy or paying it all forward to the next reader by becoming a sustaining or masthead member. In return for pledging one year’s support (this applies to our Book Club as well), we’ll gift you a special 2020 edition AsympTOTE, while stocks last. If you have only time to donate, apply to our first recruitment call of 2020 (deadline: 20 January, 2020). Up ahead, exciting developments await (among them the return of our translation contest)—subscribe to our newsletters and follow us on Facebook or Twitter to be among the first to know. We appreciate your readership all these years and we hope we’ve earned your support.

—Lee Yew Leong, Editor-in-Chief

Editorial Team for Issue January 2020

Editor-in-Chief: Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)

Assistant Managing Editors: Daljinder Johal (UK/India), Josefina Massot (Argentina), Rachael Pennington (Spain/UK), Garrett Phelps (USA), and Lou Sarabadzic (UK/France)

Section Editors:
Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)
Varun Nayar (India)
Caridad Svich (USA/UK)
Ah-reum Han (USA/South Korea)
Victoria Livingstone (USA)
Sam Carter (USA)
Eva Heisler (USA)
Henry Ace Knight (USA)
Sarah Timmer Harvey (USA/The Netherlands)

Editor of Special Feature on Kurdish Poetry: Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)

Assistant Editors: Alyea Canada (USA), Ben Dreith (Canada), Whitney DeVos (Mexico/USA), Helena Fornells (UK), Barbara Halla (France), Marina Martino (UK), Maya Nguen (USA), Erik Noonan (USA), Chris Power (USA), Andreea Scridon (UK/Romania), Lindsay Semel (Portugal/USA), P. T. Smith (USA), and Lin Chia-wei (Taiwan)

Contributing Editors: Ellen Elias-Bursac (USA), Aamer Hussein (UK), Sim Yee Chiang (Singapore), Dylan Suher (USA), and Adrian West (USA)

Translation Tuesdays Editor: Ben Dreith (Canada)

Art Director: Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)

Assistant Director, Educational Arm: Barbara Thimm (USA/Germany)

Editors-at-large, Argentina: Allison Braden and Sarah Moses
Editor-at-large, Brazil: Daniel Persia
Editor-at-large, El Salvador: Nestor Gomez
Editor-at-large, Guatemala: José García
Editors-at-large, Hong Kong: Jacqueline Leung and Charlie Ng Chak-Kwan
Editor-at-large, Iran: Poupeh Missaghi
Editor-at-large, Mexico: Paul Worley 
Editor-at-large, Morocco: Hodna Nuernberg
Editor-at-large, Peru: Paloma Reaño
Editor-at-large, Romania and Moldova: MARGENTO
Editor-at-large, Slovakia: Julia Sherwood
Editor-at-large, Taiwan: Vivian Chih
Editor-at-large, Tibet: Shelly Bhoil
Editor-at-large, Uzbekistan: Filip Noubel
Editor-at-large, Vietnam: Quyen Nguyen


Masthead for Issue January 2020

Fiction and Poetry: Lee Yew Leong
Nonfiction: Varun Nayar
Drama: Caridad Svich
Criticism: Sam Carter
Essay Contest: Lee Yew Leong (Organizer), Ah-reum Han and Victoria Livingstone (Editors)
Special Feature on Kurdish Poetry: Lee Yew Leong
Visual: Eva Heisler
Interviews: Henry Ace Knight and Sarah Timmer Harvey
Illustrations and Cover: Simone Rein

Assistant Managing Editor (Issue Production): Lou Sarabadzic

Assistant Managing Editors (supervising Assistant Editors): Josefina Massot and Garrett Phelps

Assistant Managing Editors (supervising Editors-at-Large): Daljinder Johal and Rachael Pennington

Communications Director: Samuel Kahler

Director of Outreach: Alessandro Mondelli

Chief Executive Assistant: Lucy Morgan

Executive Assistants: Zane Lilley and Bernice Seow

Assistant Blog Editors: Rachel Allen, Sarah Moore, and Xiao Yue Shan

Guest Artist Liaison: Berny Tan

Co-Chief Copy Editors: Angela Glindemann, James Shrieve, and Steven Teref

Copy Editors: Anna Aresi, Andrea Blatz, Devarati Chakrabarti, Choo Suet Fun, Clayton McKee, and Lara Zammit

Technical Manager: József Szabó

English Social Media: Rita Horanyi, May Huang, Nina Livelo, and Leah Scott

Spanish Social Media: Sergio Serrano

French Social Media: Filip Noubel 

Chinese Social Media: Jiaoyang Li and Jessica Wang

Marketing Manager: Lauren Chamberlain

Graphic Designer: Anna Wang

Communications Manager: Alexander Dickow and Georgina Fooks

Assistant Director, Educational Arm: Barbara Thimm

Educational Arm Assistants: Kasia Bartoszyńska, Lucchini Clémence, and Mary Hillis

Asymptote would like to acknowledge the support especially of Michelle Loh, Hugo Muecke, Jacob Rogers, Christopher Stout, and Maria Jesus Alonso Vicario.

For their generous donations, our heartfelt thanks go too to Yann Martel, Brother Anthony of Taizé, Gregory Kossinets, Andrew Martino, Mireille Pierre-Louis, Irene Pritsak, Rita Horanyi, Chenxin Jiang, Roy Youdale, Feroza Jussawalla, Anna Aresi, Christine Chia, Daniel Hahn, Elisabeth Brock, Eric Fishman, Heidi Holzer, Jared Davis, Jee Leong Koh, Jeffrey Boyle, Mallory Truckenmiller, Margaret Jull Costa, Margaret King, Martin Ingebrigtsen, Mary Olivanti, Matthew Mazowita, Mark Cohen, Nancy Relaford, Nora Bojar, Reif Larsen, Ruth Diver, Sidney wade, Siobhan Mei, Tiffany Tsao, Velina Manolova, Monty Reid, and William Justice.

We welcome new supporters and members of the Asymptote family Katarzyna Bartoszynska, Wendy Call, Lawrence Flood, Katrine Jensen, Madeline Levine, Speranza Migliore, MARGENTO, Hyeonjin Park, Nicholas Power, Beth Raps, Benjamin Saff, Dustin Simpson, Tamar Steinitz, Roberto Tejada, Cynthia Whitehead, and Dora Zhang.