Happy Friday, Asymptote readers! Nearly a year ago, the Asymptote blog published an interview with book artist Katie Holten, who “translated books into trees” with her Broken Dimanche Press book, About Trees. Now that very same book is in its second printing—a feat that is seriously nothing to sniff at in independent, artist-book publishing! And famed translator-slash-friend-of-Asymptote-anniversaries Edith Grossman is featured in the Los Angeles Review of Books‘ “Multilingual Wordsmiths” series, in an interview by Liesl Schillinger.
In light of the recent announcement in the United Kingdom that translated fiction sells better overall than its Anglo-pure counterparts, it might be helpful to remember that translated fiction itself is multivocal and diverse—and certainly not a genre. Then why do bookshops insist on telling us it is? Speaking of bestsellers, Korean writer Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, translated by Deborah Smith and recent winner of the International Man Booker Prize, talk translation and the crazy way in which this thrilling classic came about. And perhaps the biggest translated bestseller in recent memory is Italian phenomenon Elena Ferrante whose collected “letters, emails, and correspondence,” Frantumaglia, is due to be published in English translation in the 2017 and who is interviewed by fellow author Nicola Lagiola.
Even with some necessary linguistic and aesthetic departures from their originals, English-language renditions can easily fall flat. So the folks at LARB once again ponder serious translation questions: is there a good way to translate Chinese poetry? And should we read seriously-intervened-with poems in the first place?
Another week, another prize. This time, the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize “honors the craft of translation, and recognizes its cultural importance,” shortlisting largely independent publishers (and several books reviewed on the blog).
Legendary road-tripper and writer Vladimir Nabokov toured the American West—why shouldn’t you follow in his footsteps? Forget Words With Friends: in Nigeria, Scrabble is a state-sanctioned sport, and they’ve developed an amazing strategy to put your “JOT” to shame. And Dublin, Ireland, once the hub of so much literary life, is slowly losing its artists.