This week, Asymptote team members report on a Taiwanese science-fiction novel that’s caught the attention of Japan’s literary establishment, a poetic commemoration of a 1975 tragedy in El Salvador, and a Sri Lankan press that promises to be the first of its kind. Discover the latest from around the world, then catch up on this week’s blog entries, including a review of Asymptote‘s July book club pick.
Darren Huang, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Taiwan
In July, Taiwanese novelist Li Kotomi (Li Qinfeng) was awarded one of Japan’s most prestigious literary prizes, the Akutagawa Prize, for her novel “Higanbana ga Saku Shima” (An Island Where Red Spider Lily Blooms). The novel, which incorporates elements of science fiction, concerns a girl narrator, Umi, who drifts to an imagined island between Taiwan and Japan. The island is governed by women who lead the religious ceremonies and political affairs, while men are excluded from government. The islanders speak a language called “nihon” and another called “female language,” which can only be learned by women over a certain age and is used to pass on the history of the island. Qinfeng has remarked that for thousands of years, patriarchal societies have written official history through the perspectives of men. In this novel, she reflects on the imbalance of history-making by imagining a community where women control the writing and inheritance of history. Qinfeng’s win is unique as she is the second writer whose native tongue is not Japanese to be awarded the prize. Her accomplishment was also well received in Taiwan, where she is considered one of the first Taiwanese writers to be recognized by the Japanese literary establishment. Previous winners of the award include Mieko Kawakami for Breasts and Eggs and Hiroko Oyamada for The Hole.
Despite the recent escalation of the pandemic in Taiwan, the cultural minister Lee Yung-te emphasized that the Taiwanese arts, especially in literature, illustration, and film, continue to flourish. Literature and art museums have continued their exhibitions with COVID precautions. Notably, the National Museum of Taiwan Literature is celebrating a century of progressive literature and thinking through its exhibition, “A Century of Heartfelt Sentiment,” which started on May 8. The show is organized into a series of love letters, or writings and works from authors, painters, and other artists, focusing on six essential intellectuals of the last century. The exhibition includes the manuscripts of the poet Lai Ho, the diary of the social activist Tsai Pei-huo, the artworks of the painter Tan Ting-pho, and works of music from the era of Japanese occupation.
Nestor Gomez, Editor-at-Large for El Salvador, reporting from El Salvador
The Secretariat of Culture and Art hosted a series of poetry readings to pay tribute to the student massacre of July 30, 1975. That day, students from the University of El Salvador as well as numerous high school students held a protest near the Faculty Science and Humanities building. The protest was organized in response to the raid of the West Campus of the University of El Salvador and other human rights violations in the city of Santa Ana, by the security forces of the National Guard, the Treasury Police, and the National Police.
The student-led protest was violently repressed with tear gas and firearms that police officers used against the student demonstrators. Some student demonstrators were cornered by tanks on an overpass and witnessed the tanks drive over wounded demonstrators. Gustavo Guillén, a student participating in the 1975 student protest, recalls the horror of that day:
The march advanced and, at the height of an overpass, we were met with bursts of gunfire. Many were able to flee, but some 200 students were trapped on the bridge, receiving bullets fired from long guns. We were trying to climb the wall to take shelter at the Salvadoran Social Security Institute. The bullets were whizzing . . . In the struggle, a special situation arose. A colleague fell to the ground with her body shattered. One half in the gutter and the other half on the pavement. A tank came from behind, advanced and crushed her with the tire at the level of her abdomen. This left me stunned, in a state of shock. I knew we were in the middle of a massacre. I launched myself from the top of the slope, dropping down. I was agile. I was nineteen years old. I was lucky and landed on the hood of a car. So did some of my other companions, but they were injured.
Many poets and writers from several countries in Latin America, including Salvadoran poets Silvia Elena Regalado and Álvaro Darío Lara, contributed a few words and a poem of their choosing in remembrance of the massacre.
Thirangie Jayatilake, Educational Arm Assistant, reporting from Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka’s small publishing industry is limited to few publishers, but four book lovers have launched their own press to fill the gap. Tambapanni Academic Publishers, an academic publishing house named for the first Sinhalese kingdom in Sri Lanka, will likewise be the first of its kind in the country. Rooted in a “common belief in the power of books to inspire and stimulate debate about ideas in Sri Lanka and beyond,” the Colombo-based press will specialize in humanities and social science books, published after a thorough editorial process and peer review.
Helmed by chair Nira Wickramasinghe, a professor of modern South Asian studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands, the editorial committee includes scholars of South Asia from around the world, including Vilasnee Tampoe Hautin, Ravi Kumar, Michael Laffan, Anoma Pieris, and Sujit Sivasundaram. TAP will publish original books and reprint relevant global scholarship in English, Sinhala, and later, Tamil. The catalogue already features Ronit Ricci’s Banishment and Belonging: Exile and Diaspora in Sarandib, Lanka and Ceylon, originally published by Cambridge University Press in 2019, and Wickramasinghe’s Slave in a Palanquin: Colonial Servitude and Resistance in Sri Lanka, first published by Columbia University Press in 2020.
The group will focus on works relevant to Sri Lanka and South Asia, and although academic in nature, the books will also be suitable for general interest: “TAP has a dual mandate in keeping with its location in the global South: it is deeply committed to answering the need of readers in Sri Lanka for scholarly works of excellence at an affordable price, and it is dedicated to hands-on working with talented new authors, providing them with a gateway to global recognition.” (Learn more about TAP’s submission guidelines.)
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This week on the Asymptote blog: