Experience the world anew through non-human eyes in “Vivarium,” our Spring 2023 issue! From macaques to marmots, muntjacs to mosshoppers and microscopic prokaryotes, a superabundance of literary life overflows from 30 different countries. In this thriving biosphere, you’ll find work from Estonia and Oman flowering in the same soil as Alaa Abu Asad’s Wild Plants and our first entry from Bolivia via Pulitzer Prizewinner Forrest Gander. The same Pangaean ecosystem sustains our animal-themed special feature headlined by Yolanda González, recipient of the 2001 Premio Café Gijón Prize, and 2018 Booker International longlistee Wu Ming-Yi. Alongside these, there are the always thought-provoking words of Italian poet Franca Mancinelli, which bloom in both the Interview and Poetry section—the latter also shelters Fernando Pessoa, whose brilliant co-translators Margaret Jull Costa and Patricio Ferrari have rendered him in one of his most mordant heteronyms, Álvaro de Campos.
“Why limit oneself to people when you can narrate the world in all its multiplicity?” says Javier Moreno. We couldn’t have put it better ourselves. The very concept of inter-being (as coined by Thich Nhat Hanh) is a natural extension of our work: Translation is the very act of shedding one’s skin after all, as Robin Munby insinuates in his slithery Brave New World Literature feature. For the manic diarist of Mircea Cărtărescu’s Solenoid, however, all attempt at “inter-being” is futile, for there is no escaping the “prison house of consciousness.” When literature falls short in furnishing a true escape, it can at least offer profound awareness, as Jibbe Willems does in his unsettling drama that centers the plight of a female migrant. Just as poignantly, Yevgenia Belorusets’s interview, conducted and translated by longtime supporter Eugene Ostashevsky, places us squarely in her viewpoint amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now in its second year.
Only the most ambitious curation can do full justice to the staggering creativity that the world’s writers produce. For twelve years now, Asymptote has distinguished itself as the premier site for international literature. Within our pages, you’ll discover urgent new voices from just about everywhere. But we can’t carry on without your help. Unpaywalled and ineligible for most grants by dint of our international setup, we rely on grassroots funding from our readers like you to continue. Please consider getting involved today by signing up as a sustaining or masthead member for as little as $5 per month.