This week, our editors are bringing news of their vigorously alive world literatures. From a celebration of Czech letters at the Warsaw Book Fair and the Prague MicroFestival, to a commemoration of iconic Taiwanese writer Li Qiao, to a push for Serbian women’s voices in a collection of short stories—the ongoing efforts of writers, presses, and translators around the world indicate always towards greater and greater realms of understanding.
Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting from the Czech Republic
Held from September 9 to 12, the Warsaw Book Fair was one of the first major industry events to make a comeback after the pandemic-enforced hiatus, with the Czech Republic as the guest of honour. The timing was quite fortuitous, since barely two months after the event, cases were again surging in these two countries, as well as in most of Europe.
Czech literature has been enjoying a real boom among Polish readers, and this was reflected in the strong contingent of leading Czech writers who came to Warsaw. They included Michal Ajvaz, Bianca Bellová, David Böhm, Petr Hruška, Alena Mornštajnová, Iva Procházková, Jaroslav Rudiš, Marek Šindelka, and Kateřina Tučková. Past Asymptote contributor Radka Denemarková—who drew the largest crowds—felt that “in recent times, it has been particularly important for us writers to show solidarity—especially with countries such as Poland and Hungary—creating a kind of enclave of humanism.”
Also popular with Polish readers was a meeting with Petra Hůlová, who presented the Polish translation of her 2018 novel Stručné dějiny hnutí (A Brief History of the Movement), a book she describes as “a feminist manifesto and critique of feminism rolled in one.” Her “provocative satire of a feminist future challenges and unsettles in equal parts” (Kirkus Reviews) has just been published by World Editions as The Movement, in Alex Zucker’s English translation. You can read an excerpt from the book here as well as in BODY.Literature, the Prague-based English-language literary journal whose fall issue also features poetry by Karel Šebek (trans. Ondřej Pazdírek) and Pavla Melková (trans. Joshua Mensch), as well as a chilling absurdist story by Vratislav Kadlec (trans. Graeme Dibble).
On October 18, Hůlová and Zucker read from and discussed The Movement in an event organized by Czech Centre New York. Their conversation (now available to watch on YouTube) also included the writer-translator pair Kateřina Tučková and Veronique Firkusny and the novel Gerta, published by AmazonCrossing earlier this year. On November 22, Firkusny will be featured again as part of European Literature Night, organized by the Czech Centre; she will appear with Elena Sokol, as their joint translation of the final part of past Asymptote contributor Daniela Hodrová’s trilogy, City of Torment, is soon to be published by Jantar Publishing.
Paul Gravett introduced five Czech comic writers—Kateřina Čupová, Štěpánka Jislová, Lucie Lomová, Marek Rubec, and Václav Šlajch at Czech It Out! An Extravaganza of Comic Art from the Czech Republic at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF), held from October 15 to 17 in the English town of Kendal, where the Czech Republic was the principal guest.
Poets Marie Iľjašenko, Olga Stehlíková, and Jan Škrob—alongside more than two dozen international poets and artists—took part in a mix of live and video performances as part of the annual Prague MicroFestival, held from October 8 to 10, combining contemporary writing with art, film, theory, and performance. On November 10, two other leading Czech poets and their English translators presented their work during the Den Poezie (Day of Poetry) Festival in Prague. Kateřina Rudčenková launched the collection Dream of a Journey (just out from Parthian Books) with Alexandra Büchler, while Tereza Riedelbauchová and Stephan Delbos read from Paris Notebook (reviewed here by Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler) published by Blue Diode Press. Last week, this publisher organized a mini-UK tour for Milan Děžinský, another Czech poet whose collection A Secret Life (trans. Nathan Fields) they had recently published. Those who missed the readings in Newcastle, Edinburgh, and Glasgow have another chance to sample Děžinský’s work: from November 1 to December 10, his and Rudčenková’s poems are appearing as ephemeral site specific public art works, penned onto the tarmac outside the Czech Centre London using ECO biodegradable paint.
Darren Huang, Blog Editor, reporting from Taiwan
In October, the Taiwanese Li Qiao Literature Association celebrated its fourth anniversary since its founding—honouring the eighty-eight-year-old writer, who is considered amongst the greatest of contemporary Taiwanese novelists. His novels have been translated into numerous languages, including English, Spanish, Japanese, and Czech, and the author has also been highly prolific in other genres, publishing poetry, plays, and criticism. Focusing on the lives of ordinary Taiwanese people facing hardships, Li’s work is known for its realism and employment of experimental methods, such as stream-of-consciousness. One particular standout of his corpus is the “Wintry Night” trilogy, which weaves together three generations of a Taiwanese family and their stories through the Japanese occupation and WWII. Though the trilogy is a work of fiction, it is based both on Li’s own family history and the written facts of the period. Considered an important portrayal of colonial Taiwan before Kuomintang rule, English translations of the trilogy were released from 2001 to 2002 by translators Taotao Liu and John Balcom.
The association aims to contribute to public knowledge regarding the life and work of the acclaimed Taiwanese writer; recent lectures hosted by the association explore the evolution of Li Qiao, as well as his work’s relationship to the history of ethnic groups in Taiwan. The association also seeks to preserve the legacy of the writer’s works through various projects—such as compiling his greatest novels into a collection, Complete Works of Li Qiao. Another of the group’s initiatives is gathering support for the writer toward a nomination for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Taiwan also mourned the passing of Chen Rou-jin, another writer devoted to studying Taiwanese history. Having performed cultural analyses of Taiwanese mass culture in works such as Taiwan modern old advertising and explored the nation’s history in novels, including The Daughter of Kaohsiung, Chen will be remembered for expanding Taiwan’s understanding of its present and past.
Jovanka Kalaba, Editor-at-Large, reporting for Serbia
Will Firth, currently one of the most active literary translators from Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian into English, spent three weeks in the Serbian capital of Belgrade in October and November to conceive a collection of short stories by young women writers. During his stay, which was funded by the EU mobility fund i-Portunus, Firth took part in a discussion at the Belgrade literary association Krokodil on translating from small languages; he also continued work on a longer-term translation project on the history of the peace movement in Croatia from 1991 to 2011. But the main focus during his stay was on putting together the aforementioned collection. Consisting of fifteen pieces of varying length, subject, and style, written by women ranging from thirty to forty-two years of age, the ensuing publication is sure to provide a good cross-section of the vibrant young women’s writing scene of Belgrade in particular, and of Serbia and Montenegro in general.
Several of the featured writers, such as Jasna Dimitrijević and Marija Ratković, are beginning to develop a following, while others have only recently come to the reading public’s attention. What they all have in common, however, is that they do not make their living from writing alone, and may never be able to—for a range of social, political, and economic reasons. Awareness of this situation encourages a frank and uncompromising approach to writing. Apart from being entertaining, the stories contain a wealth of insights into life in the turbulent and patriarchal region of ex-Yugoslavia, which brings forth the strength and resilience of women.
Firth has translated one story as a sample—of a schoolgirl who discovers she has extrasensory powers and sews a voodoo doll to take revenge on a molesting teacher—and has summarised the others to form the backbone of a package. He will begin pitching this to Anglophone publishers later this month. Hopefully the stories will find an ear with a bold publisher open to new international voices.
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