In this week’s roundup of literary news, we are paying tribute to the legacy of monumental writers. As Hong Kong mourns the recent loss of one of the country’s emblematic authors, Xi Xi, the Czech Republic commemorates the 100th anniversary of Jaroslav Hašek’s passing. In Guatemala, beloved writer of personal and continent-spanning histories, Eduardo Halfon, takes a new step into global recognition. Read on to find out more!
Charlie Ng, editor-at-large, reporting from Hong Kong
Renowned Hong Kong writer Cheung Yin, more commonly known by her pen name Xi Xi, passed away on December 18, 2022 from heart failure. Originally born in Shanghai, Cheung came to Hong Kong in 1950 at the age of twelve. She was educated at Heep Yunn School and the Grantham College of Education, and became a primary school teacher after graduation. Among her most prominent works are My City and Flying Carpet, both urban novels that reflect everyday lives and the transformation of Hong Kong. Another acclaimed novel, Mourning a Breast, is a semi-autobiographical work based on Cheung’s own experience of fighting breast cancer. Cheung also wrote poems and was prolific in essays, often published as articles for newspaper columns. Her most recent publications include the historical novel The Imperial Astronomer and the poetry collection Carnival of the Animals.
Loved by all generations of readers, Cheung is known for her playfulness, imagination, and experimental techniques. Blending real and fantastic elements, some of her works are described as embodying a style of “fairy-tale realism.” The Chinese characters of her pen name, Xi Xi 西西, represents the image of a little girl in skirt playing hopscotch. Cheung was awarded the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature and the Cikada Prize in 2019, and the Life Achievement Award of the 16th Hong Kong Arts Development Awards in 2022. A memorial service was held at Cheung’s alma mater, Heep Yunn School, on January 8 to commemorate her literary achievements, and on January 14, another memorial meeting was organised in Taipei, in which Hong Kong and Taiwan writers gathered to recite her works. Her translator, Jennifer Feeley, who translated Not Written Words and Mourning a Breast, also wrote a memorial, “A Translator Like Me” (available in both English and Chinese) to honour the lauded writer.
Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting on the Czech Republic
On January 3, the literary world marked the hundredth anniversary of the passing of Jaroslav Hašek, “the improbable titan of Czech literature.” By the time he died at the age of not quite forty (perhaps not surprising given his prodigious beer intake), Hašek had completed only the first three volumes of what he had intended to be a six-part novel: the comic masterpiece The Good Soldier Švejk and His Fortunes in the World War—the most translated Czech book ever. His protagonist has been hailed as “a literary type that reaches the level of Don Quixote by Cervantes or Anna Karenina by Tolstoy,” and the book is still a firm favourite with Czech readers of all ages. Hašek’s name has even featured in the recent Czech presidential campaign: several candidates subjected themselves to a grilling by schoolchildren, who could barely disguise their contempt when one of the candidates, former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, blithely admitted not knowing the title of Hašek’s famous book (recorded here in Czech), and struggled to remember the titles of anything by Karel Čapek, the other world-famous Czech author. Not that this lack of sophistication prevented Babiš from advancing into the second round of the election, held on January 27-28, in which he was eventually roundly defeated. It would have been particularly ironic if this unashamed philistine ended up in the post once held by Václav Havel—particularly as Babiš is Slovak-born, and the start of 2023 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the breakup of Czechoslovakia. By contrast the incumbent, Petr Pavel, referenced Havel’s motto “truth will prevail” in his victory speech.
The final days of 2022 brought the sad news that the greatest living expert on Czech and Slovak literature in the English-speaking world, Robert B. Pynsent—emeritus professor at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies University College London, enfant terrible, a fierce critic of stupidity known for his often provocative views (and former teacher and great friend of mine)—passed away on December 28, soon after his seventy-ninth birthday. “Robert’s erudition was, quite simply, otherworldly. No one who spent any time with him could think of Czech and Slovak as ‘small’ literatures,” wrote his UCL successor Peter Zusi in his obituary of “this towering figure in the institution and in his field, both through his rigorous scholarship and his inspirational character.” To give Asymptote readers a taste of the Pynsentian style of literary criticism, here is the conclusion of his essay on Hašek (with whom he shared the ability to drink almost anyone under the table), published in 1989: “Hašek is not a very serious writer who is taken very seriously by critics of all political persuasions. He has little gift for psychology, linguistic adornments, or imagery. He has a gift of comedy that smells somewhat of beer halls and undergraduate lavatories, but which is inimitable. He is a genius of crassness.”
Rubén López, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Guatemala
In January 2023, acclaimed Guatemalan author Eduardo Halfon announced that two of his novels, Monastery and Mourning, will be released in Polish. This is a significant step forward for the author, given that Poland is a fundamental part of the author’s literature and identity: he is a descendant of a Polish Holocaust survivor. The translator of the novels will be Tomasz Pindel and published by Wydawnictwo Czarne.
In several interviews, Halfon has said that memory is the main source of his fiction. “My personal memory of my childhood, but also family memory, the stories of my grandparents, the stories of my parents, and also collective memory: recent history in Guatemala or the memory of the Jewish people.” These two novels exemplify the intimate exploration of memory, with which Halfon seeks to connect with his homeland of exile. Monastery, published in 2014, is composed of several short stories that recount the arrival of two brothers in Israel to attend their sisters’ wedding. Within it, Halfon reflects on his identity, religion, mourning his deceased grandparents, and a passionate love affair with a flight attendant.
Mourning, published in 2017, is about Halfon’s uncle Salomón, who drowned in Lake Atitlan when he was five years old. Originally told to Halfon when he was a child of the same age, the story had a profound effect on his life. His uncle Salomón left a trail of mystery, hearsay, and silence, which the author tries to explore in his prose.
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