Literary calendars over the last week have been packed with festivals, prize announcements, and new publications. In Argentina, FILBA and the Feria del Libra de la Plata present a full roster of events; in India, Geetanjali Shree’s fresh Booker win continues to drive hopes for the country’s writings; and from Bulgaria, an award-winning work by Georgi Gospodinov is released to the Anglophone.
Josefina Massot, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Argentina
If you thought a record-smashing, three-week-long book fair could just about sate Argentines after years of pandemic famine, you’ve sorely downplayed their literary appetite: just days after the Feria Internacional del Libro de Buenos Aires came to a close, not one but two other major events followed suit.
From May 26 to May 28, the beach town of Mar del Plata hosted the eleventh FILBA, a literary festival featuring workshops, panels, and shows. Bestselling authors Guillermo Martínez and Tamara Tenenbaum talked about the complicated ties between happiness and fiction. Authors—and close friends—Hernán Ronsino and Ricardo Romero discussed other literary friendships, from Alfonsina Storni and Horacio Quiroga to Victoria Ocampo and Gabriela Mistral or Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares. A group of authors led a tour of Villa Ocampo, Victoria Ocampo’s summer home in Mar del Plata and one of the city’s most iconic landmarks.
Meanwhile, on June 3, the Feria del Libro de la Plata officially kicked off; it will be held through Sunday in the eponymous city, a cultural center in its own right. The fair features over two hundred and fifty publishing houses distributed across some one hudnred stands; among them are Planeta, Random House Penguin, De las Luces, Dos editores, Maipue, Blason, Libertador, Siglo XXI, Grupo Editorial Sur, and Del Naranjo. hundred stands; among them are Planeta, Random House Penguin, De las Luces, Dos editores, Maipue, Blason, Libertador, Siglo XXI, Grupo Editorial Sur, and Del Naranjo.
Like its predecessor, the fair boasts readings, conferences, panels, and activities for younger readers. It also offers a wide range of other programs, including drawing workshops, talks on the connection between literature and science, and tributes to those fallen in Malvinas (this year marks the 40th anniversary of the Falklands War against Great Britain). Local authors include Rosa Orchuelo, presenting Constelaciones de palabras (Word Constellations) and Claudia Baldoni, author of De muertes sin Venecia (Of Deaths without Venice).
Suhasini Patni, Editor-at-Large, reporting from India
Tomb of Sand, now a bestseller on Amazon India both in the original Hindi and English translation by Daisy Rockwell, has just become the first South Asian novel to ever win the International Booker Prize. Many translators have spoken about the originality of Geetanjali Shree’s poetic prose and the impossibility of translating a book like Ret Samadhi. Annie Montaut, the French translator of Tomb of Sand, first received her copy of the book in 2018 at the Jaipur Literature Festival. “I was instantly taken in by the way it was written—I finally understood why it took her nearly seven years to complete the book,” she said, stating that Ret Samadhi had to be translated because it “would be a cultural encyclopedia of modern India.” Her full essay can be read here. Fans of Shree can also read her novel Mai, translated by Nita Kumar and published by Zubaan, to explore how she uses language to defy borders and explore hybridity.
The historic win has raised new hopes for international recognition of Indian literature. In an interview with The Week, Rockwell spoke about her experience translating Tomb of Sand and how she came to learn Hindi. She said “international publishers have just had no interest at all in Indian translations.” She hopes the win will push for more strides in publishing and that “we’ll see more Indian literature coming out in the west.” Sohini Basak, a former contributor of Asymptote, also wrote about the recent developments in Indian translation and how the book’s momentous win might be translation’s big break in India.
Certainly, one can see a steady rise in the books releasing in translation, not just with the Booker but with the popularity of other literary awards such as the JCB Prize. VJ James, who was previously shortlisted for the award, is known for his subtle humor and clever satire, and a new English translation of his book, Nireeswaran, has recently come out. In the book, translated from Malayalam by Ministhy S, three atheists—Antony, Sahir, and Bhaskaran—try to prove that God is nothing but a superstition by installing an idol of Nireeswaran, an anti-god. Their intention, to question people’s blind faith in religion, is subverted when miracles start being attributed to their fake idol; the book elegantly questions the porous boundaries between belief and disbelief.
While the year began with the devastating news of the shutdown of Westland Books, June has brought with it many reasons to celebrate Indian writing. The team at Westland have been at work with Pratilipi, a new platform “connecting readers and writers in 12 Indian languages.” Hopefully, Indian readers will witness flourishing sales in translation.
Andriana Hamas, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Bulgaria
Newly published translations of Bulgarian fiction are, sadly, such a rarity that when one actually appears in print, it is certainly a cause for celebration. Thankfully, throughout the last month, the locals have had the chance to witness exactly such an achievement. The work in question is Time Shelter (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2022), written by Georgi Gospodinov (whose previous Asymptote contributions can be read here), and rendered in English by Angela Rodel, a professional literary translator and Gospodinov’s long-time collaborator.
The book, originally published in 2020, has already won several prestigious international prizes, chief among them the Premio Strega Europeo, considered to be the most prominent award bestowed to prose pieces written in or translated into Italian. Not long after the English edition was released, British critic Patrick McGuinness described Time Shelter as a “funny yet frightening Bulgarian novel that explores the weaponisation of nostalgia,” while translator and writer Adrian Nathan West viewed the book as “touching and intelligent.”
When asked to share his own thoughts on the text, Gospodinov explained: “For someone who loves the world of yesterday, writing this novel was no easy task. This someone was forced to let go of their dreams of the past and of what it becomes. I wrote about the mixing of the different times, about the moment when memory—both personal and collective—packs its bags and leaves. About Gaustine’s new obsession and the discrete monster of the past, which is heading in our direction. About the shelters we build when the present no longer feels like home.”
For more of Gospodinov’s insightful remarks on the elusiveness of time and its relation to the tragic developments in Europe’s most recent history, make sure to check out his conversation (in English) with Italian novelist, poet, and journalist Andrea Bajani.
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