In this week of dispatches from around the world, our Editors-at-Large report on literary awards, the establishment of a literature museum, and book fairs! From controversy surrounding the new museum in Hong Kong to the most recent Indian texts in translation, read on to learn more!
Charlie Ng, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong
Public voices demanding for a museum of literature have been around for years in Hong Kong. On July 22, during the Hong Kong Book Fair 2023, Poon Yiu-ming, the Chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Writers, announced that the Museum of Hong Kong Literature would be inaugurated in April next year in Wan Chai with support from Chief Executive Lee Ka-chiu and the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Poon petitioned Lee last year on the establishment of a literary museum. However, the announcement has attracted controversy in the literary arena.
The concept of a museum for Hong Kong literature was proposed by a group of local writers and scholars, including Dung Kai-cheung, Tang Siu-wa, Yip Fai, Liu Waitong, and Chan Chi-tak, among others, who formed the “Hong Kong Literature Museum Advocacy Group,” in 2009. A signed petition that successfully solicited signatures from hundreds of local and international Chinese writers and scholars was published in Ming Pao, which proposed to establish a literary museum in the West Kowloon Cultural District. Since the suggestion was not adopted by the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority then, the Advocacy Group proceeded to establish the House of Hong Kong Literature as a non-governmental organization for promoting and preserving Hong Kong literature.
After the establishment of the Museum of Hong Kong Literature was announced, the House of Hong Kong Literature issued a declaration stressing that “The House of Hong Kong Literature Limited” was established in 2013 and had served the Hong Kong community for a decade. Poon and the Federation of Hong Kong Writers had not informed or sought collaboration with the House of Hong Kong Literature on the establishment of the new museum. The House of Hong Kong Literature believes that information should be shared with all stakeholders in the literary arena on important decisions such as the establishment of a new museum.
Local writers have expressed their concerns for a new museum that involves the authority of the government. Novelist Dung Kai-cheung comments that “the literature museum should not be just an institution granted by the authority, it should also be responsible to the writers, readers, and all workers in literature. It is for the sake of literature.” Poet Liu Waitong also believes that “the museum of Hong Kong literature should belong to the community.” The controversy will not be easily solved, especially under the current political climate in Hong Kong, in which the establishment of a literary museum is related to freedom of speech and the power issues of discourse and writing.
José García Escobar, Editor-at-Large, reporting on Central America
Mid-July, Guatemala finished yet another exciting edition of FIGLUA, the region’s most prominent and oldest book fair. The week-long event gathered some of the most important authors and intellectuals of Mexico and Central America, such as Horacio Castellanos Moya, Guillermo Arriaga, Denise Phe-Funchal, Ana María Rodas, Carolina Escobar Sarti, David Unger, and Michelle Recinos, who put out her latest collection of short stories called Sustancia de hígado. Last year Michelle gained broader notoriety after the she won both the 2023 Premio Carátula and the Premio Mario Monteforte Toledo for her stories Daisy Miller and Barberos en huelga; both stories are included in Sustancia de hígado. Notoriously, FIGLUA also offered a spot to progressive presidential candidate Bernardo Arévalo, the author of Estado violento y ejército politico, which drew a crowd of hundreds.
Also in July, young Guatemalan poet Obed Tello won the 2023 Juegos Florales Rodolfo Angelino Rivera Escalante for his book of poems De esta raíz. Upon receiving the prize, Tello dedicated it to his hometown of Nentón, Huehuetenango.
Areeb Ahmad, Editor-at-Large, reporting from India
The sixth edition of the JCB Prize for Indian Literature is currently underway. This year, the jury is led by author and translator, Srinath Perur, well-known for his translation of Vivek Shanbagh’s Ghachar Ghochar from Kannada. He is joined by Somak Ghoshal (author and critic), Mahesh Dattani (playwright and stage director), Kavery Nambisan (author and surgeon), and Swati Thiyagarajan (filmmaker and conservation journalist). The longlist is expected to be announced sometime in September. Books in translation have won the prize four out of five times so far since 2018, and the 2022 shortlist was composed entirely of translations, a first in the prize’s short history.
Some really nice anthologies of translated short fiction have been published recently. Feeling Kerala, edited and translated by J Devika, showcases contemporary Malayalam stories and lived experiences in the South Indian state in the 21st century. The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told, edited by Arunava Sinha, purports to collect some of the finest literary short fiction written by Indian writers since the genre came into being locally. It promises to be an eclectic selection with time period, region, and language being no bar. Sinha has also previously edited and translated The Greatest Bengali Stories Ever Told, the first anthology in this series, of which The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told is the eleventh. Each previous volume has focused on stories from one particular language or region.
Tilted Axis Press continues to bring Indian literature in translation to a wider audience. Their backlist boasts of stalwarts such as Gogu Shyamala, Geetanjali Shree, Salma, Jayant Kaikini, and Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay. To this host of names, they have added the Dalit feminist Bengali poet, Kalyani Thakur Charal. Translated by Sipra Mukherjee and Mrinmoy Pramanick, I Belong To Nowhere: Poems of Hope and Resistance is her first collection to appear in English and it charts the realities of Dalit life, especially for women, in Bengal. This year Tilted Axis will also publish I Am Miyah, translated from Bengali by Shalim M. Hussain, which is an anthology highlighting the protest poetry by Bengali-Muslims living in precarity in the Indian state of Assam.
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