Our writers bring you news this week from France, Hong Kong, and Sri Lanka. In France, a government official’s attempt to silence Pauline Harmange’s defence of misandry has turned her book Moi les hommes, je les déteste (I Hate Men) into an overnight bestseller; in Hong Kong, Chenxin Jiang was one of four winners of the Words Without Borders Poems in Translation Contest for her translation of poet Yau Ching; and in Sri Lanka, the Colombo International Book Fair is taking place, with the announcement of major literary awards such as the Svarna Pustaka Award. Read on to find out more!
Barbara Halla, Assistant Editor, reporting from France
In the beginning there were only 400. That was the initial print run that the French indie publisher Monstrograph had planned for Pauline Harmange’s Moi les hommes, je les déteste (I Hate Men) when it was released in late August. As its provocative title belies, this ninety-six-page volume is essentially a defence of misandry, of women’s right not to like men. Harmange purportedly argues that in the face of thousands of years of subjugation and violence, women have not simply the right to hate men, but should also focus on building a life that decentres them. I say purportedly because I have not read the book yet. By the time I tried to get my hands on a copy, it wasn’t simply out of stock: the publisher had stopped publishing it altogether, unable to keep up with demand.
From those who have read it, I Hate Men has received mostly positive reviews, but it became a phenomenon thanks to a failed attempt to silence it. In a perfect example of situational irony, Ralph Zurmély, a French government official working, funnily enough, for the French ministry of gender equality, requested that the book be banned for inciting violence. He even threatened the publisher with legal action. Alas, thanks to him, the book has now become an overnight success, drawing plenty of international attention and depleting the original publisher’s resources. A few days ago, I Hate Men was acquired by Éditions du Seuil, a more established publishing house, whose head, Hugues Jallon, will be following the project personally. No word yet as to how long readers will have to wait for their copies.
Jacqueline Leung, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong
By some strange coincidence, September 9 brought a lot of news regarding Hong Kong literature and its reach further afield.
Words Without Borders announced the winners of its second Poems in Translation Contest, organized with the Academy of American Poets. Yau Ching’s “Trial Run,” translated by erstwhile Senior Editor (Chinese) Chenxin Jiang, is one of the four winning poems and will be published shortly as part of Words Without Borders’s celebration of National Translation Month.
Yau is a Hong Kong writer and professor who has authored more than ten books, including award-winning poetry collections, and is also a prolific filmmaker and video artist. She has published several bilingual volumes of work including The Impossible Home (2000), Shadow Beings (2015), and more recently Aria, or Air (2019). You can read a selection of Yau’s poems, previously translated for Asymptote (and some of which are also translated by Jiang,) here.
Wuxia (martial arts) novels also form one of the cornerstones of Hong Kong’s literary offerings; in a way, they speak to a previous generation before the contemporary plethora of poetry. The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, programmed by the Los Angeles Review of Books’ China Channel, launches its new wuxia season with a discussion between host Angus Stewart and Gigi Chang, translator of the widely renowned novelist Jin Yong, or Louis Cha, who died in 2018. Chang speaks about her translation of A Bond Undone, the second installment of Jin Yong’s phenomenal Legends of the Condor Heroes series. published in English earlier this year. In this discussion, Chang delves into the genre’s popularity and the author’s enduring acclaim.
Hong Kong’s Legislative Council elections would have happened in September, if not for the government’s insistence to postpone it for an entire year, citing COVID-19 as its reason. (At the time of the would-be Election Day, the city only had an average of ten daily cases. Critics rightfully attribute the delay to the government’s fear that pro-establishment lawmakers would suffer defeat at the polls, just as their faction had suffered defeat in the district elections last winter.) In support of Hong Kong’s ongoing democracy movement, the Berlin International Literature Festival organized a Worldwide Reading with individuals reciting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in twenty languages. Cha also hosted an online reading with various writers and academics sharing timely works of their own.
Chamini Kulathunga, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sri Lanka
Since its inaugural event in 1999, the Colombo International Book Fair (CIBF) has been a major annual literary event in Sri Lanka. Marking September as the National Literary Month, and including the announcement of major literary awards such as the Svarna Pustaka (The Golden Book), Rajata Pustaka (The Silver Book), Godage, and Vidyodaya national literary awards, the CIBF has become the focal point of the island’s literary events. Both the 2020 Svarna Pustaka Award (which is awarded to the best novel published in the previous year) and Vidyodaya Literary Award for the best novel written in 2020 were presented to Petha (Hungry Ghost) by Eric Illayappaachchi.
Over the years, not only has it become the ultimate venue to buy and sell books, but also an opportunity for book lovers and the local literary community to meet. The event is attended by around one million people from all over the island. Held in mid-September, the book fair is organized by the Sri Lanka Book Publishers’ Association in partnership with local publishing houses. Every year, there will be 450 to 500 stalls, primarily selling books published in the Sinhalese, Tamil, and English— the three main languages on the island. There are also over fifty international stalls from publishers based in India, China, Singapore, Japan, France, and the UK. Almost every stall offers a flat discount of 20% on all books sold on the premises, with some even offering 50% to 70% on selected books.
The 2020 CIBF is scheduled to take place between September 18 and September 27 at its usual venue, the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH). However, due to the prevailing COVID-19 situation on the island, the organizers are requesting that participants register online in advance to minimize the rush at the on-site registration point. There will be an entrance fee of 20 rupees (USD 11 cents) for the general public, with school students and clergy being admitted free of charge.
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