This week, our writers bring you news from Lebanon, Taiwan, and Sweden. In Lebanon, the three-day festival Electronic Literature Day will feature writers including Rabih Alameddine and Raafat Majzoub; in Taiwan, the writer Liu Wu-hsiung, known by his pen name, Qi Deng-sheng, is being mourned after passing away and a recent exhibition has featured the works of the late Taiwanese poets Yang Mu and Lo Fu; and in Sweden, writer Jonas Hassen Khemiri was in line for the National Book Award’s Translated Literature prize. Read on to find out more!
MK Harb, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Lebanon
Fernweh! Or “a longing for far-off places, especially those not yet visited.” I recently learned the meaning of this German word on our newly developed “Untranslatable Words” column on Instagram (yes, that’s right we are on Instagram now!). To remedy this longing, which many of us are grappling with, check out this stellar lineup of writers on Electronic Literature Day, a three-day online literary festival featuring writers, thinkers, and practitioners in dynamic formats (November 24-26). The festival is co-organized by Barakunan, an independent publisher and art collective based in Beirut and Berlin. It will feature some of Lebanon’s finest, from acclaimed author Rabih Alameddine, writer and artist Raafat Majzoub, and cultural and social activist Dayna Ash.
This month, the translation news across the Arab region is abundant! Yasmine Seale won the 2020 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize for poetry. We’ve previously highlighted Seale’s poetic and engrossing translation of Aladdin that came out with W. W. Norton in 2018. Sawad Hussain sat down with the Anglo-Omani society to discuss translating Arabic literature and the emotional mechanisms involved in bringing the texts “to life” in English. Hussain is the winner of two English PEN Translates awards and in the podcast, she discusses and contextualizes transgender narratives in Oman through the prism of translating The Shadow of Hermaphroditus by Badriyya al-Badri. Here at Asymptote, we are excited about Arabic children’s literature in translation! The English translation of Sonia Nimr’s Wondrous Journeys in Strange Lands from Interlink Books will debut on November 24! It is a feminist folktale unfolding through the journeys of a young Palestinian woman by the name of Qamar. Marcia Lynx Qualey, founder of Arablit Quarterly, worked on the translation. She previously gave an interview to Asymptote in 2017. Finally, on November 24 the shortlist for the 2020 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation will be announced. This year’s prize saw fourteen entries in fiction and poetry, with excellent nominees such as Ibtisam Azem’s The Book of Disappearance translated by Iraqi novelist and scholar, Sinan Antoon.
Darren Huang, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Taiwan
On October 24, the Taiwanese modernist writer Liu Wu-hsiung, known by his pen name, Qi Deng-sheng, passed away at the age of eighty-one. Qi created a large body of work, including essays, poems, and multiple novels, which centered on the struggles between individuality and societal norms. In 1966, with Taiwanese writers Yu Tien-tseng, Chen Ying-zhen, and Shih Shu-ching, he launched Literature Quarterly, a journal of Taiwanese literature, which featured a number of significant works in Taiwanese literary history, including Huang Chun-Ming’s “The Sandwich Man.” Huang’s story later appeared in his short story collection, The Taste of Apples, which was translated into English by Howard Goldblatt in 2001. Qi is best known for his novels, “I Love Black Eyes,” “Return to the River,” and “Lament of the Sand River,” which was adapted into a film. “Lament of the Sand River” concerns a poor man who leaves his hometown to pursue his dream of becoming a trumpet player and joins a touring opera troupe. He falls in love with a girl but confronts the loss of his livelihood when he contracts tuberculosis. The novel was praised for its realistic portrayal of Taiwan post-Japanese occupation and the destitution, wanderlust, and unfulfilled dreams in the protagonist’s tragic life, based on the actual experiences of the author’s older brother. In addition to his writing, Qi taught elementary school in New Taipei City and in his hometown, Miaoli, in western Taiwan. Qi was also known for his photography and painting, of which he held two solo exhibitions in 1991 and 1992. Qi’s close friend and writer Ma Sen said of him, “He is one of the rare writers that presented both his bright and dark sides to readers.”
From October 9 to November 15, an exhibition featuring the works of the late Taiwanese poets Yang Mu and Lo Fu was held at the Taiwan Cultural Center in Tokyo. Yang, inspired by Romantic poets such as John Keats, was a pioneer in poetry, prose, and criticism, while Lo is known for his 3,000-line poem, “Driftwood,” which he considered a summation of his artistic journey and philosophy.
Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden
Novelist, playwright, and essayist Jonas Hassen Khemiri is one of Sweden’s most prominent contemporary writers and has received several literary awards, including the Borås Prize for Best Swedish Literary Debut, the Per Olov Enquist Literary Prize, and the August Prize. He was a finalist for the National Book Award‘s Translated Literature category (together with translator Alice Menzies) for the novel The Family Clause. Menzies is a London-based freelance translator who has previously translated books by Fredrik Backman, Jens Lapidus, and Katarina Bivald. In 2017, Khemiri became the first Swedish writer to be published in The New Yorker with the short story “As You Would Have Told It to Me (Sort Of) If We Had Known Each Other Before You Died.” Khemiri’s novels have been translated into over thirty languages, and over one hundred theatre companies have performed his plays in numerous countries. His 2003 debut novel, One Eye Red, sold more than any other paperback in Sweden the following year.
Another prominent Swede with a record in book sales is football player Zlatan Ibrahimovic, whose 2011 memoir, I Am Zlatan Ibrahimovic, (published in English in 2014, translated by Ruth Urbom) is one of the most sold hardcover books in Swedish history. Ibrahimovic started his career with the Swedish team Malmö FF and became a professional player with the Dutch AFC Ajax in 2001 and has since played for numerous teams in Europe and for LA Galazy in the North American MLS league. His biography is co-authored together with David Lagercrantz, who is also known for writing the sequels to the Millennium Trilogy after the sudden passing of its original author, Stieg Larsson. A movie adaptation of Ibrahimovic’s book is currently being filmed, based on a script by Lagercrantz and directed by Jens Sjögren, with a release planned for fall 2021. A reprint of the book is planned for the same time, possibly with additional chapters that cover the last decade of Ibrahimovic’s life.
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