This week, our editors-at-large report on recent science fiction adaptations in China, the Sámi National Day in Sweden, and the passing of literary icons in both East Africa and China. From a revived book festival to the runner-up of the Safal-Cornell Kiswahili Prize, read on to learn more!
Jiaoyang Li, Editor-at-Large, reporting for China
Liu Cixin’s Hugo Award-winning novel Three Bodies was recently adapted into a TV series and streamed more than 3 million times in a week on Tencent Video, making it the most popular TV series in China. In addition to the live action, Bilibili, the largest animation website in China, also launched an animated series of the novel.
Although we must recognize it as a milestone in Chinese science fiction literature for IP adaptation, there is one thing to question: Why is it always Three Bodies? There are plenty of other wonderful sci-fi collections written by female Chinese writers needing our attention. For example, New York-based bilingual sci-fi writer Mu Ming’s fiction collection 宛转环 (The Serpentine Band), an excerpt of which was published by Clarkesworld Magazine in 2021, will be fully released in Chinese by One Way Books in 2023.
On January 27th, 2023, two of the most famous Chinese translators, 杨苡 (Yang Yi) and 李文俊 (Li Wenjun) passed away on the same day, Yang Yi at the age of 103 and Li Wenjun at the age of 93. Yang Yi, born in Tianjin, worked at the Foreign Language Department of Nanjing Normal College. She was the first person to translate Wuthering Heights and Songs of Innocence and Experience into Chinese. Born in 1930, Li Wenjun graduated from Fudan University and was the editor-in-chief of World Literature Magazine. He has translated most of Faulkner’s works, including Absalom, Absalom!, As I Lay Dying, Go Down, Moses, The Sound and the Fury and many other works that have greatly influenced Chinese writers and readers for half of a century.
Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden
This past Monday, February 6, was the National Day of the Sámi, the indigenous people of Scandinavia. Sápmi, the land of the Sámi, stretches through the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. In 1917, the first Sámi national meeting was held on February 6 in Tråante (Trondheim) in Norway, and the date has officially been celebrated as the Sámi National Day for the past thirty years.
This week, several news items relating to Sámi languages and Sámi literature were reported. Mika Saijets, head of Sámi Giellagáldu—a Nordic knowledge and resource center and the highest expert organ for the Sámi languages—announced that the organization is recruiting new experts to be able to cover language counselling in more Sámi languages than the three that Sámi Giellagáldu currently offers support for. There are ten Sámi languages, all of which are classified by UNESCO as endangered. To mark the Sámi National Day, the Swedish Literature Exchange pointed out that Ann-Helén Laestadius’ novel Stolen, in English translation by Rachel Willson-Broyles and just published this month by Bloomsbury Circus, is on the Nordic Watchlist for novels to look out for in 2023. Two other Sámi books forthcoming in English translation that the Swedish Literature Exchange are highlighting are Elin Anna Labba’s The Deportation of the Northern Sámi, in English translation by Fiona Graham, and Linnea Axelsson’s Aednan, in English translation by Saskia Vogel. Words Without Borders presents an excerpt from Labba’s nonfiction narration as well as an essay by Vogel on her translation work on Axelsson’s long poem.
In other literary news this week, Rinkeby bokmässa, a book festival based in the Stockholm suburb Rinkeby that was held annually between 1993 and 2007, will be revived as Rinkeby Bokfestival this spring. Initiators are poet Sorin Masifi and publisher and journalist Maria Bodin. According to the organizers, it will be a diverse festival that will celebrate reading in all its various forms and include the multilingual and multicultural aspects of contemporary Swedish literature as well as stories of migration and displacement.
Wambua Muindi, Editor-at-Large for Kenya, reporting from Nairobi
For the the literary community in Kenya, and East Africa at large, this year is off to a sombre start. Aged 94, Yusuf Dawood ironically breathed his last as the year opened. A storyteller of great wit and intellect, with Pakistan roots, educated across continents and with an illustrate practice as a surgeon, Dawood—in the words of Tom Odhiambo, a teacher of literature at the University of Nairobi—“demystified medicine.” That he was a literary icon is demonstrated by the depth and range of his body of work. From a number of novels, which would be superfluous to mention, to literary journalism via his long-running Sunday Nation column Surgeon’s Diary, he offered his wealth of experience in the medical field to daily readers.
On January 25, 2022, the Safal-Cornell Kiswahili Prize winners were announced in a ceremony in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Isaac Ndolo came in second for Wimbo wa Hatima and was the only Kenyan to win one of this year’s prizes; this is a time in which much of literary production seems to be dominated by English. Ndolo’s Wimbo wa Hatima was originally written in Swahili, and has been brought into the Kenyan literary scene with the help and support of publishing house Mkuki na Nyota. This achievement means that literary production in Swahili is getting some attention, and the possibility of a translation means potential access to such writing in other languages.
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