It’s the official start of Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere and Spring in the South―the beginning of a new season where minor plans and promises are made that we desperately try to be faithful to. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just the temperature that changes. Nonetheless, here at Asymptote we’ll always fulfill our promise of bringing you the latest news from around the globe, just in time for the weekend, with this week’s reports from Argentina, Romania and Moldova, and Taiwan.
Lara Norgaard, Editor-at-Large, brings us the news from Argentina:
August in Argentina was a month for reading. Buenos Aires celebrated Jorge Luis Borges’ birthday on August 24 by organizing a walking tour tracing Borges’ most notable haunts. The 24th is also the country’s annual Día del Lector, commemorating the renowned writer.
On August 23, the Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires (MALBA) hosted a conversation between North American policy analyst David Rieff, and Argentine novelist Luisa Valenzuela on the topic of collective memory. Valenzuela is known for her novels that recall state violence, written during and after Argentina’s brutal last military dictatorship. The topic of historical memory is especially relevant right now as the Argentine public protests the alleged disappearance of indigenous rights activist Santiago Maldonado, who went missing at a protest in Patagonia on August 1.
In the midst of September’s Bienalsur, a major visual art biennale, literary events still abound in Buenos Aires: one upcoming highlight is the celebration of Latin American women writers, El silencio interrumpido, to be hosted at MALBA on September 6. The free event includes speakers such as Argentine novelist Reina Roffé and poet Tamara Kamenszain, as well as Cuban critic José Quiroga.
Such literary events are not limited to the city of Buenos Aires proper. The province of Buenos Aires partnered with cities Lanús and Quilmes on August 26 to host Un día de libros, a wide-ranging event series featuring everything from free lectures on literature to the release of Diez lugares contados, an anthology of stories about life in the province. Between September 18-23, FIDEO (Festival Intergaláctico de Escritores (Oficial)) will take place in San Miguel de Tucumán in northern Argentina. The festival, organized by cultural organization EsCuchara with support from the National University of Tucumán, is a free, open, and experimental space for writers to meet.
Finally, readers across the country celebrate a new translation of Polish author Witold Gombrowicz’s diaries into Spanish. Gombrowicz, who lived in Argentina from 1939-1963, had significant influence on 20th century Argentine literature. Translators Bozena Zaboklicka and Francesc Miravtilles’ rendering of Diario make the author’s personal insights available to the Spanish-speaking world.
MARGENTO, Editor-At-Large, gives us the latest from Romania and Moldova:
The second edition of the Gellu Naum Festival, co-organized by the Romanian Literature Museum and Gellu Naum Foundation on August 4-5, has as its MCs the poet and Naum critical authority Simona Popescu and French-Romanian poet and translator Sebastian Reichmann, and feature over twenty poets (from big names such as Emil Brumaru and Angela Marinescu to rising stars like Asymptote past contributors Emilian Galaicu-Păun and Radu Vancu, and Elena Vlădăreanu) reading to the jazz music performed live by pianist Mircea Tiberian. Naum (1915 – 2001), is an outstanding representative of European surrealism.
Poet and translator Paul Vinicius, this year’s winner of Le Prix du Public du Salon du Livre des Balkans, has announced a forthcoming critical anthology of English-language poetry edited and translated by himself, excerpts of which he has already published in major literary venues, while also editing the collected works of Vintilă Ivănceanu, a foremost representative of the oneiric poetry school who spent most of his life in political exile. Vinicius has also recently started an independent writers association in opposition to the central one (led by Nicolae Manolescu) dating back to communist times and marred by nepotism and abuse.
Iulia Militaru is the Romanian poet invited to read and perform at the Brussels Poetry Festival whose 4th international edition scheduled for Sept 8-10 has as a theme the work of surrealist painter René Magritte and his “La Trahison des Images.” Militaru is also currently writing a series of articles to Arta on censorship in/as literature interspersed with and commenting on illustrative “pop-up pastorals” from past Asymptote (journal and blog) contributor Jennifer Scappettone’s latest collection The Republic of Exit 43.
Claudiu Komartin and his editorial team have launched the 19th issue of Poesis International, the longest running international poetry journal in Romania to date, showcasing Danish, Bulgarian, American (Frank Bidart), Albanian, French, Hebrew, Argentinian (Alejandra Pizarnik)—and much more—poetry in translation alongside Romanian literature in a bulky 236-page issue.
In Moldova, the editors of Metaliteratura journal, Aliona Grati and Nina Corcinschi have just launched an impressive and much awaited Literary Theory Dictionary.
Vivian Szu-Chin Chih, Editor-At-Large, reporting from Taiwan:
Taipei has been welcoming international athletes for the 2017 Summer Universiade since mid-August. The opening ceremony performances featured multifaceted Taiwanese cultures including the aboriginal ones, and the event has attracted more attention from around the globe to the island.
The Taiwanese writer Shu-Hau Liao (廖淑華), whose novellas and essays won several literary awards, published her first collection of novellas, Cotton Milkbush (《唐棉》) in early summer, with the funding from the National Culture and Arts Foundation. From her own life experiences in a small town in Yunlin County of central Taiwan, Cotton Milkbush is a representative of Taiwan’s “town literature” (小鎮文學), in which the writer vividly depicts daily lives of the town people, dialect spoken by these people, as well as the landscapes and architectures of the small town. In a realistic tone, Liao puts more emphasis on her female characters and has carried forward the legacy of Taiwanese town literature.
One of the oldest literary magazines in Taiwan, Wenhsun (《文訊》), has published an excerpt of the novelist Li Yongping’s unfinished wuxia novel, A New Picture of the Swordswoman (《新俠女圖》) in its August issue. The renowned Malaysian-born novelist, professor, and translator, who has lived in Taiwan for decades and retired here, has been composing his first wuxia novel in illness. Wenhsun decided to pay their tribute to the writer with its first-ever double covers, one of which has been dedicated to Li’s long-awaited wuxia novel.
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