The days are opening wide this season, like the pages of a new book: for most of us growing longer and fuller. It’s a good thing, because we’ve got a lot to catch you up on. This week, we’re bringing a full dosage of global literature news with achievements from Hong Kong, rolling publications by Czech talent, and literary commemorations gliding through the literal end of an era in Japan.
Jacqueline Leung, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong
This spring has been a series of firsts for Hong Kong literature. Continuing from my previous dispatch in March on Xi Xi winning the Newman Prize for Chinese literature, historically awarded to writers from mainland China and Taiwan, World Literature Today is dedicating its first annual city issue to writing from Hong Kong. Sourcing contributions from writers, translators, and academics at the forefront of Hong Kong literature, the issue includes poetry, essays, and creative nonfiction with a focus on food and languages as well as a selection of recommended reading about the city. Xi Xi and Bei Dao are among the list of writers featured in the magazine, as is Wawa—recently showcased in Asymptote’s Winter 2019 issue in an interview with Poupeh Missaghi, our editor-at-large in Iran—and Chris Song, one of the winners of the Fifth Hai Zi Poetry Prize which announced its results a few weeks prior.
To celebrate the launch of the issue, Cha, Hong Kong’s resident online literary journal, is organizing an event on April 27 at Bleak House Books, where eight contributors will be reciting and discussing their works. Tammy Lai-Ming Ho, founding co-editor of Cha and the guest editor of World Literature Today’s Hong Kong feature, will also speak about the conception of the special edition.
While World Literature Today provides a panoramic review of writing from Hong Kong, two local writing competitions are seeking new blood. Founded in 1972, the Youth Literary Awards remains one of Hong Kong’s most prestigious prizes for emerging writers and 2019 marks its 46th edition. Targeted at writers aged between 11 and 40 writing in Chinese, the prize encompasses several categories including literary translation, criticism, short fiction, poetry, and more, with a submission deadline of August 18.
As part of their annual Literature Season, the House of Hong Kong Literature is accepting short fiction submissions for its writing competition before May 6. The competition is similarly directed at emerging writers writing in Chinese and centers its theme around the concept of home, echoing the organization’s aim to popularize Hong Kong literature in the very place it is born.
Filip Noubel, Editor-at-Large for Central Asia, reporting from the Czech Republic
Czech literature is under the spotlight at home and abroad: it was just profiled at the March Leipzig Book Fair, where the Czech Republic was the guest country. In early April, the winners of the country’s most prestigious literary prize, the Magnesia Litera, were also made public. Long occulted by the imposing names of Kundera and Hrabal, new and younger Czech authors are finally getting recognition as they cross the borders of their own culture and language, venturing with their texts into more global literary landscapes.
Characteristically, Asia as a mirror has become a recurring theme for authors seeking to redefine Czech cultural identity. It is present in Bianca Bellová’s novel The Lake, which won the European Union Prize in 2016 and takes places in an imagined Central Asian country. It is also prominent among some of the winners of the 2019 Magnesia Litera winners. The well-established Radka Denemarková, whose earlier novel Money from Hitler is available in English, took the Book of the Year award with Lead Hours, a seven-hundred-page-long exploration of her encounter with modern Chinese society, and of the reactions of Europeans to China’s authoritarian regime. The young Anna Cima won in the prose debut category with Probudím se na Šibuji (I will wake up in Shibuya), a story of young graduates in Japan Studies and their fascination for Japanese culture taking place both in Prague and Tokyo.
Prior to those awards, the Leipzig Book Fair had invited to its March 2019 edition over sixty Czech writers to celebrate Czech literature, and the way recent Czech works reflect on the country’s troubled history with Germany. Following Jana Katalpa’s novel Germans, published in 2012, which opened the Pandora’s box of Czech-German relations during WWII, other authors have followed. In her novel The Expulsion of Gerta Schnirch, Kateřina Tučková looks at the eviction of ethnic Germans at the end of the war. Graphic novel artist Jaromír 99, co-author of the trilogy Alois Nebel, which takes place in Sudetenland, has now become a major ambassador of Czech literature, whether in Leipzig or at the comics festival in Angoulême. Incidentally, his co-author, Jaroslav Rudiš, has just released his first novel directly written in German, Winterbergs letzte Reise (Winterberg’s Last Trip). So next time you pick up a Czech novel, don’t be surprised if it takes you far away from Prague!
Xiao Yue Shan, Assistant Blog Editor, reporting from Japan
Though in the month of April we are too often commenting endlessly on the innate poetry of cherry blossoms, new meaning will be given to this spring as, on May 1, it will be marked in Japanese history as the culmination of the Heisei era and the emergence of Reiwa jidai. Defined superficially as “order and harmony”, the name for the new era (令和) sparked criticism internationally as an augury of impending changes to forcibly install harmony, with many remarking on the nation’s increased militarism. The official opinion in Japan, however, is of a milder sentiment: that the two characters, when used in combination, intends to express beauty and fortuity. The name itself has literary origins; taken from the Man’yōshū, an ancient anthology of poetry, the first character, rei, was used in a line depicting the gentle nature of a spring breeze. Those cabinet meetings may look boring, but maybe the Japanese government has a romantic side after all!
Many Japanese cultural institutions are commemorating this change with events that remark upon the literary significance of Heisei. The Museum of Contemporary Poetry, Tanka and Haiku in Iwate prefecture is holding an exhibition (from March 2019 until March 2020) highlighting a roster of poets who either were born, lived, or passed during the Heisei era. Featuring autographs and works from a wide range of highly-regarded poets including Ōoka Makoto, Ishigaki Rin, and Naka Tarō, it is an effort to understand the era via the language of those who lived within it. The Maebashi Literature Museum (in Gunma prefecture) is also celebrating sixty years of Gendai Shi Techo (Contemporary Poetry Handbook), a monthly literary journal with an exhibition titled “詩の未来へ―” (To the Future of Poetry) and a full roster of literary events. The publication, founded by Oda Hisao, has been a long-standing and tireless staple of the Japanese poetry scene, publishing literary criticism along with works from renowned writers such as Tanikawa Shuntarō, Takahashi Mutsuo, and Yoshimasu Gōzō.
To pay tribute to what would’ve been Dazai Osamu’s 110th birthday, the Museum of Modern Japanese Literature in Tokyo is holding an exhibition entitled “創作の舞台裏” (Backstage of the Creation). Though there have been several anniversary exhibitions focusing on Dazai’s work in the past (Japan loves its “bad boy” author), this one seeks to depart from the norm by focusing on the manuscripts and original documents. Examples of their impressively comprehensive collection includes a first reveal of the complete manuscript of Otogizōshi, in addition to the various drafts and manuscripts of distinguished works such as No Longer Human and The Setting Sun.
In further literary news, Pulitzer Prize winner and illustrious translator of Japanese literature, Forrest Gander, has released an English-Japanese edition of his poetry collection, Eiko & Koma, originally published in 2013 and based on the brilliant performance artists themselves. Co-translated by Eri Nakagawa and Matthew Chozick, the work draws upon the fearless and intricate movements of the Japanese artists to bring a living dance to the page.
*****
Read more dispatches from the Asymptote blog: