This week, our writers bring you the latest news from Australia, Taiwan, and Sweden. In Australia, the NT Writers Festival has celebrated Aboriginal writing and language; in Taiwan, registration has opened for the 2021 Taipei International Book Fair and the winners of the Golden Tripod Awards were announced; and in Sweden, the Nobel Prize in Literature announcement was made, awarding American poet Louise Glück. Read on to find out more!
Rita Horanyi, Newsletter Editor, reporting from Australia
In Australia, like much of the rest of the world, literary events have been cancelled or moved online due to lockdowns and travel restrictions. Thus, it was especially exciting to see that the Northern Territory (NT) Writers Festival—held this year in the country’s tropical Top End in Darwin—was able to pull off a predominantly live event after having to postpone the festival from May to October.
The NT Writers Festival showcases local talent, alongside interstate and international guests, with a particular focus on South East Asian voices. Unfortunately, COVID-19 meant it was challenging to include writers from South East Asia this year, but, with the assistance of digital technology, acclaimed Indonesian poet Norman Erikson Pasaribu was able to join the festival to discuss “Translating Indonesia” with past Asymptote Editor-at-Large for Indonesia and translator Tiffany Tsao (the session is available to watch online here).
One of the ways the NT Writers Festival differs from many literary events in the country is in its strong emphasis on Aboriginal writing and language. This year’s festival included a panel with Meigim Kriol Strongbala (a group based in Ngukurr working to strengthen the place of Kriol), who discussed the process of translating the popular children’s book Too Many Cheeky Dogs (the session was held in both Kriol and English). Another special appearance was by the Gay’wu (Dilly Bag) group of women from Yirrkala in North East Arnhem Land. This group of women read from and discussed the writing of their Stella Prize longlisted book, Songspirals, which illuminates the role of women in the crying of Yolŋu songlines. Senior Yolŋu Elder Eunice Djerrkngu Yunupingu even keened milkarri (women’s songspirals) in front of festival audiences. In other sessions, a group of Arrernte poets from Mparntwe/Alice Springs read and discussed their new poetry collection, Arelhekenhe Angkentye: Women’s Talk, which interweaves poems in both English and Arrernte.
Many Australians remain unaware that prior to white invasion and colonisation more than 250 Aboriginal languages were spoken in Australia. Today, despite being one of the most multicultural countries in the world, some 90 percent of Aboriginal languages are critically endangered. However, important work around language revitalisation is starting to combat this. Earlier in the year, Wiradjuri author Tara June Winch won Australia’s most prestigious literary award, The Miles Franklin Award, for her novel, The Yield, which blends a story of trauma, loss, and reclaiming culture and identity with a dictionary of the Wiradjuri people. Two thousand and twenty is the second year running that an Aboriginal author has won the country’s highest literary honour (Melissa Lucashenko won the Miles Franklin last year for Too Much Lip), a long overdue sign that there has been, to paraphrase the theme of this year’s NT Writers Festival, a turning of the tide.
Darren Huang, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Taiwan
The Taipei Book Fair Foundation has started registration for the 2021 Taipei International Book Fair (TiBE), which will be held in the Taipei World Trade Center from January 26–31, 2021. The TiBE is considered one of the largest Asian book exhibitions, serves as an annual meeting place for Asian publishers, and has been praised for diverse exhibitions, author talks, and book selections. The fair attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over Taiwan, as well as foreign exhibitors from a variety of countries.
The 2020 edition’s physical event was cancelled because of COVID-19 but an online edition opened from May 15 to June 30 with exhibitions still available after the show. TiBE 2020 was themed “New Horizons of Reading” and offered such features as reading salons, an online book show, and themed exhibitions, which ranged from awards for best novel (won by Hu Qingfang’s 群島,“Islands”) to recommendations for educational books. Other highlights included a collection entitled, “Food in Federico Fellini’s drawings,” which consisted of the director’s drawings and explained particular cinematic scenes, works by German writers Ronen Steinke and Jan Mohnhaupt, video interviews with French writers Eric Vuillard and Emmanuel Lepage, and an interactive museum with writings from the National Museum of Taiwan Literature.
The 2021 TiBE will host South Korea as theme country to promote internationalization of the publishing industry and encourage participation in the fair from underserved regions. It will offer free admission to readers south of Taoyuan (in northwestern Taiwan) and sponsoring its “Reading the City” initiative, which invites writers to read in remote rural bookstores.
On September 11, the winners of the Golden Tripod Awards were recognized. The awards were founded in 1976 to promote reading and to improve the quality of Taiwanese literature. The winners for best literature included Love Before Dawn: Scenes from Japanese Taiwan by Lai Hsiang-Yin, The Cloudy Mountain by Chen Shu-yao, A Journey of an Art Collection by Lin Jiao-bi, and Ghost of a Place by Kevin Chen, which is particularly unique for its depiction of a wandering gay protagonist estranged by his ghostly Chinese hometown of Yongjing.
Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden
The Nobel Prize in Literature was announced earlier this month by the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, Mats Malm, at a press conference in the Academy’s headquarters in Stockholm’s Old Town. The prize this year was awarded to American poet Louise Glück “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.”
The Nobel Prize in Literature is always announced on a Thursday in October at 1:00 p.m. and as soon as the announcement is made, the nomination period for next year’s prize opens. Those with capacity to nominate include thousands of representatives of literary academies, organizations, and institutions around the world, as well as academic professors in literary and linguistic fields, and any previous Nobel literary laureate. After the nomination period ends, at the end of January, a longlist is created which typically amounts to around two hundred names. During the following months, a specific committee within the Swedish Academy, the Nobel Committee, works with shortening the longlist to about twenty names. The Nobel Library and its staff assist them, for example by giving expert opinions or translations. At the next stage, a shortlist of five names is created. Though strict secrecy is required of everyone involved, there have sometimes been suspicions of leaks. This year, for example, the odds for Louise Glück notably decreased on betting websites during the hours prior to the announcement.
While the winner is announced in October, it is not until December 10 that the award ceremony takes place. Normally, the laureates of the five different Nobel Prizes are invited to Stockholm where they receive their medals from the Swedish king. The ceremony is followed by a gala with around 1,300 guests. This is certainly Sweden’s largest and most glamorous dinner party all year, with the royal family as honorary guests. The banquet is broadcasted, commentators included, on Swedish television. This year, of course, due to the pandemic, there will be no guests arriving in Stockholm. Instead, the ceremony will be held online. Each Nobel Prize laureate is required to hold a Nobel Lecture. Lectures by previous literary Nobel Prize laureates are available online, including Peter Handke (2019), Olga Tokarczuk (2018), and Kazuo Ishiguro (2017).
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