Step into our bountiful Summer edition to “look for [yourself] in places [you] don’t recognize” (Antonin Artaud). Hailing from 31 countries and speaking 29 languages, this season’s rich pickings blend the familiar with the foreign: Sarah Manguso and Jennifer Croft (co-winner, with Olga Tokarczuk, of this year’s Man Booker International Prize) join us for our 30th issue alongside Anita Raja, Duo Duo, and Intizar Husain, and our first work from the Igbo in the return of our Multilingual Writing Feature.

This year’s polyglot lineup features Douglas Kearney’s zigzagging dialects and Eugene Ostashevsky’s idiom-transcending puns. Collectively, the eight multilingual articles curated by poetry editor Aditi Machado embody a thrilling range of practices from ethnographic writing to asemic translation. Other poets in the issue also probe the outskirts of language and the limits of meaning, as in Yi Won’s evocations of computer code, or Michèle Métail’s blending of visual and performance poetics. Multilingualism can take us beyond language proper; it can migrate into other symbolic systems entirely.

The growing trend of multilingualism is a reflection of a world in greater flux. In a Mexican village, clay figures described by Cristina Rivera Garza replace inhabitants that have moved on. Recalling these strange village-dwellers, the twilit figures of artist Tomaz Viana’s Insomnia wander a museum like the “border-crossers” populating Dubravka Ugrešić’s Fox, reviewed in this issue by Peter Mitchell. For Ugandan essayist Mildred K Barya, the scream also occupies such an indeterminate space: “borderless . . . and always shifting.” Echoing Barya’s scream, Antonin Artaud’s “Fragments From a Diary in Hell” transforms the depths of a damaged soul into prose of searing intensity. In contrast, Duo Duo—one of the founders of modern Chinese poetry—finds joy in love and the act of writing. “I love, love that my shadow / is a parrot,” he writes, suggesting that his jubilation, like Artaud’s alienation, springs from self-reflection.

As if seeing ourselves anew, we recognize the condition of others as easily as our own shadow. Anita Raja writes of just such a fragmentation: “In Medea there are . . . six voices, six different I’s, each telling a different truth, giving their version of what happened.” How might we see, looking through someone else’s eyes? The Israeli narrator of Ayelet Gundar-Goshenù's "Listening In" projects her own desires and aspirations onto the Arab woman she spies on; aware of this surveillance, her quarry begins to perform an identity. (Ifada Nisa, July 2018’s guest artist, suggests this faceless face-to-face in one of fourteen beautiful illustrations especially commissioned for this milestone edition.) In Olzhas Zhanaidarov’s riveting drama, on the other hand, oppressor and victim face off in a pair of monologues presented side by side, as though the perversions of power and corruption have made even the boundaries between individuals impenetrable.

We at Asymptote believe world literature can break down boundaries between people. So we’re excited to announce the fourth edition of Close Approximations, our annual international translation contest! Esteemed judges Edward Gauvin (Fiction) and Eugene Ostashevsky (Poetry) will be helping us award $3,000 in prizes. To encourage early submissions, we’re taking 15% off the entry fee if you submit by September 1; the final deadline is October 1. Not a translator? Consider joining the Asymptote Book Club! Now into its eighth month, our rigorously curated Book Club has been delighting subscribers with the best of world literature for as little as USD15 a book, delivered right to their doorsteps. Bundled along with each surprise is access to our exclusive members-only discussion space; we even facilitate Q&As with the translators, some of which you can read here. Finally, if you would like to celebrate our 30th issue (or help us stick around for 30 more issues!), consider a one-time donation of whatever you can afford or becoming a sustaining member for as little as USD5 a month. No gesture is too small. Help us cross more borders and knock down even more walls. Get involved today!

—Lee Yew Leong, Editor-in-Chief

Editorial Team for Issue July 2018

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

Assistant Managing Editors: Sam Carter (USA), Mattea Cussel (Spain/Australia), Janani Ganesan (India), Rachael Pennington (Spain/UK) and Jacob Silkstone (Norway/UK)

Section Editors:
Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)
Aditi Machado (India/USA)
Joshua Craze (UK/USA)
Caridad Svich (USA/UK)
Sam Carter (USA)
Henry Ace Knight (USA)
Ah-reum Han (USA/South Korea)
Eva Heisler (USA)

Editor of Multilingual Writing Feature: Aditi Machado (USA/India)

Assistant Editors: Alexis Almeida (USA), Lizzie Buehler (USA), Victoria Livingstone (USA), Josefina Massot (Argentina/USA), Georgia Nasseh (UK), Erik Noonan (USA), Chris Power (USA), P. T. Smith (USA), Kevin Wang (USA/China), and Lin Chia-wei (Taiwan)
 
Senior Editor (Chinese): Chenxin Jiang (Germany/Hong Kong)

Contributing Editors:
Ellen Elias-Bursac (USA), Howard Goldblatt (USA), George Henson (USA), Aamer Hussein (Pakistan/UK), Sylvia Lin (Taiwan/USA), Sayuri Okamoto (Japan/Italy), Sim Yee Chiang (Singapore), Dylan Suher (USA) and Adrian West (USA)

Chinese Contributing Editor: Francis Li Zhuoxiong (Hong Kong/Taiwan)

Spanish Contributing Editor: Soledad Marambio (Chile/USA)

Translation Tuesdays Editor: Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)

Podcast Editors: Dominick Boyle (Switzerland/USA) and Layla Benitez-James (Spain/USA)

Art Director: Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)

Assistant Director, Educational Arm: Jasmine Gui (Canada/Singapore)

Editor-at-Large, Albania: Barbara Halla
Editor-at-large, Argentina: Sarah Moses 
Editor-at-large, Australia: Tiffany Tsao
Editors-at-large, Brazil: Rita Mattar and Lara Norgaard 
Editor-at-large, Egypt: Omar El Adl
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, Hungary: Diána Vonnák
Editor-at-large, Indonesia: Norman Erikson
Editor-at-large, Iran: Poupeh Missaghi
Editors-at-large, Mexico: Paul Worley and Kelsey Woodburn 
Editor-at-large, Morocco: Hodna Nuernberg
Editor-at-large, Nigeria: Olufunke Ogundimu
Editor-at-large, Romania and Moldova: MARGENTO
Editor-at-large, Singapore: Theophilus Kwek
Editor-at-large, Spain: Manel Mula Ferrer
Editor-at-large, Slovakia: Julia Sherwood
Editor-at-large, South Africa: Alice Inggs
Editor-at-large, Taiwan: Vivian Chih
Editor-at-large, Tunisa: Jessie Stoolman


Masthead for Issue July 2018

Fiction: Lee Yew Leong
Nonfiction: Joshua Craze
Poetry: Aditi Machado
Drama: Caridad Svich
Criticism: Sam Carter
Writers on Writers: Ah-reum Han
Multilingual Writing Special Feature: Aditi Machado
Visual: Eva Heisler
Interviews: Henry Ace Knight
Illustrations and Cover: Ifada Nisa

Chief Executive Assistant: Sasha Burik
Senior Executive Assistant: Alice Fischer
Executive Assistant: Daljinder Johal
Book Club Manager: Sydney Sims

Blog Editors: Sarah Booker, Stefan Kielbasiewicz, and David Smith

Assistant Interviews Editor: Claire Jacobson

Guest Artist Liaison: Berny Tan

Chief Copy Editor: Laura Garmeson

Proofreaders: Laura Garmeson, Lorenzo Andolfatto, Catilin O’Neil, Chris Power, Kevin Wang, and Lara Zammit

Technical Manager: József Szabó

Responsive Layout Designer: Ben Saff

English Social Media: Sohini Basak, Ananya Sriram, and Enyseh Teimory

Spanish Social Media: Sergio Serrano

French Social Media: Filip Noubel 

Chinese Social Media: Jiaoyang Li and Jessica Wang

Newsletter Editor: Maxx Hillery

Marketing Managers: Giorgos Kassiteridis and Marina Sofia

Marketing Analyst: Nicolas Llano Linares

Chief Graphic Designer: Kyrstin Rodriguez

Graphic Designer: Lotus Lien

Ebook Designer: Eliza Chen 

Communications Managers: Alexander Dickow and Emma Page

Assistant Director, Educational Arm: Jasmine Gui 

Educational Arm Assistants: Kasia Bartoszyńska, Mary Hillis, Maria Snyder, and Cara Zampino

Asymptote would like to acknowledge the support of: Saviana Stanescu, Sohini Basak, Magdalena Mclean, Kate Garrett, and Valentina Bravo.

For their generous donations, our heartfelt thanks go too to William Cadwallader, Ulf Jacobsen, Melania DeSantis, Mary Olivanti, Frank Schaer, Louise Gagnon, Lara Norgaard, Joseph Hutchison, Shelby Sleight, Martha Gifford, Matthew Mazowita, Ruth Diver, Julie Hillery, Mark Cohen, Jeffrey Boyle, Velina Manolova, Mark Cohen, Tiffany Tsao, Siobhan Mei, Monica Timms, Daniel Hahn, and Anna Aresi.