This week, our editors from around the world report on new acclaimed translations from the Philippines, Hong Kong writers discussing art-marking during political restrictions on their freedom of expression, and a new publishing house in Sweden focused on investigative journalism and books translated from Swedish. Read on to find out more!
Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Editor-at-Large, reporting from the Philippines
Literary translation in the Philippines is more alive than ever. Asymptote contributor Bernard Capinpin won the 2022 PEN America’s Heim Grant for his translation of the late Edel Garcellano’s sci-fi novel Maikling Imbestigasyon ng Isang Mahabang Pangungulila (Kalikasan Press, 1990) [A Brief Investigation to a Long Melancholia]. Also, obstetrician and travel writer Alice Sun Cua’s landmark project with Sto. Niño de Cebu Publishing House “ferried” post-Spanish Civil War novelist Carmen Laforet’s Nada into Hiligaynon language.
Aimed at enhancing the Filipino “diasporic cultural footprint around the world,” the country’s National Book Development Board offers translation grants to authors and publishers of children’s literature, classical and contemporary prose, graphic literature, as well as historico-cultural works written in Philippine languages (Ilocano, Cebuano, Waray, Hiligaynon, Meranaw, Tausug, and Kinaray-a) and foreign languages (German, Spanish, French, Arabic, Japanese, and Chinese). This year, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts also conferred the Rolando S. Tinio Translator’s Prize to SEAWrite awardee Roberto T. Añonuevo for his translation of the late National Artist for Literature Cirilo F. Bautista’s phenomenological study Words and Battlefields: A Theoria on the Poem (De La Salle University Publishing House, 1998) [Mga Salita at Larangan: Isang Pagninilay sa Tula] from English.
Outside Manila, the “center” of the country’s creative industry, there were other publishing highlights in recent weeks. In the Bikol region, the Ateneo de Naga University Press (ADNU Press), known for its European translation series featuring Rilke, Donne, Kafka, and Wilde in Minasbate, Tigaonon, Waray, and Bikol languages, recently organized the 1st Bikol Book Festival, along with art gallery Savage Mind and special participation by the Czech Ambassador to the Philippines. (You can read the Words Without Borders interview with ADNU Press deputy director and 2017 University of Iowa International Writing Program fellow Kristian Sendon Cordero here.) In Western Visayas, independent publishing house Kasingkasing Press, in partnership with writers’s group Hubon Manunulat and Palabasalibro Bookstore, also launched thirty new titles of children’s books in Hiligaynon and Kinaray-a. The release was part of the Iloilo Mega Book Fair, now in its fifth year, held at the Iloilo Museum of Contemporary Art.
Jacqueline Leung, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong
From June 2 to 7, the Taiwan International Book Exhibition was held at the Taipei World Trade Center. A considerable number of Hong Kong writers—some of whom have moved to Taiwan altogether due to Hong Kong’s recent sociopolitical climate—made an appearance, including Chiang Hiu-mei, Dung Kai-cheung, Page Fung, Leung Lee-chi, Quanan, Tang Siu-wa, Dorothy Tse, and Wong Yi. Many of the events touched upon Hong Kong’s restriction of freedoms, from increasing political censorship and arrests under the blanket National Security Law to persisting barriers for travel amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Participating Hong Kong writers shared their thoughts regarding the impact of these measures on the publishing industry and the freedom of expression, as well as how they cope individually in their practice.
At a panel discussion, Dung, Chiang, and Wong discussed their recent work: Dung’s two recently published essay collections Reading with the Fox and Reading with the Hedgehog and Chiang’s Whale Stranded in the Fall (title translations mine), as well as Wong’s Ways to Love in a Crowded City, parts of which have already been translated by Jennifer Feeley in Asymptote, among other journals. Leung and Fung also had a conversation about their latest books, Daily Activities and Smoke Street respectively (title translations mine). Both narratives address Hong Kong’s extradition protests and their aftermath through poignant recollections of moments from ordinary life. Despite being published in Taiwan, Leung and Fung make active use of Cantonese terms and idioms in their prose, which reflect their characters’ immediate emotional reactions toward events in the city and Hong Kong’s unique linguistic landscape. In a similar vein, Dorothy Tse spoke about Ghost in the Umbrella, her magical realist short story collection exploring the metropolis and the human psyche amid political upheaval. Her first novel, Owlish, will be translated by Natascha Bruce and is due for release in spring 2023.
Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden
A new Swedish publishing house, Bite the Bullet Press, founded by author and investigative journalist Lisa Bjurwald, has opened this year. “I want to make books that change the world,” Bjurwald tells the Swedish publishing trade magazine Svensk Bokhandel. It was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February that motivated Bjurwald to actualize her ideas of starting a publishing house with a focus on investigative nonfiction, reportage, and current affairs. She claims that with the ongoing war in Ukraine, the importance of investigative journalism has risen. Based in Stockholm, Bite the Bullet Press will have an international outlook and will publish books in English at the same time they are published in Swedish to reach more readers. Though new in the role as a publisher, Bjurwald has extensive experience in the book industry, not only as the writer of eight nonfiction books but also as public relations and marketing manager at the publishing house LB Förlag and as a former editor-in-chief of Författaren, a magazine for writers and literary translators.
Another Swedish writer with international prospects is Aris Fioretos, who has been elected as a new member of the German Akademie der Künste, one of Europe’s oldest cultural institutions. Originally founded in 1696 as the Preußische Akademie der Künste, the current academy has over 420 members in six different sections: architecture, film and media arts, literature, music, performing arts, and visual arts. The literary section was founded in 1926 by Gerhart Hauptmann, Arno Holz, Ricarda Huch, Franz Werfel, and brothers Heinrich and Thomas Mann. The academy’s current members include Herta Müller, Jonathan Franzen, Ai Weiwei, Bob Dylan, and William Forsythe. Fioretos, who grew up speaking Swedish and German, is a prolific writer and literary scholar, as well as a current professor of esthetics at Södertörn University in Sweden. His publications in English include The Gray Book (1999) and Word Traces: Readings of Paul Celan (1994).
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