This week, our Editors-at-Large report on documentaries about poetry, award-winning short stories, and exciting translation fellowships. From novels shortlisted for big prizes to upcoming movie screenings, read on to find out more!
Charlie Ng, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong
Taiwan’s 60th annual Golden Horse Awards will be held on November 25 and Hong Kong film director Ann Hui’s most recent documentary Elegies is nominated for the Best Documentary Feature. Elegies was already selected as the opening film for the Hong Kong International Film Festival earlier this year, which was a rare occasion as poetry—the subject of the documentary—used to be a niche literary interest in the city. The first part of Elegies presents a sketching of contemporary Hong Kong poetry through interviews of Hong Kong poets and archival materials of Xi Xi and Leung Ping-kwan. The second and third part of the documentary are dedicated to two Hong Kong poets, Huang Canran and Liu Wai-tong, respectively, who both have deep cultural roots with Hong Kong but choose to live elsewhere. Hui studied literature at university, and poetry had long been a subject matter that the director wished to explore through the medium of the moving picture. The film is her way of paying homage to local poetry and the city, as well as an elegy for a bygone era.
To celebrate the nomination and achievement of Elegies, M+ Museum has organised a few screening sessions of the documentary in November. The November 18 screening includes a post-screening dialogue with the director and the featured poets, moderated by M+ film curator Li Cheuk-to. Ann Hui will discuss her ideas about poetry and the implications of poetry for her film productions. The three artists will engage in conversations on the essence of poetry, as well as their own stories of poetry writing.
Zohra Salih, Editor-at-Large, reporting on India
In these darkest of times, as a genocide unfolds in full light while nations, leaders and media houses watch silently, any occasion for celebration is a rarity. Still, I am very proud to have received news that the shortlist for the 25th National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose 2023, overseen by the American Literary Translators Association, features three Indian-language translations this year.
Sheela Tomy’s enthralling debut Valli, translated from Malayalam by Jayshree Kalathil and published by HarperCollins, is set amidst the Western Ghats in Kerala, and is a powerful statement about environmental violence, politics and justice, as well as an ode to the adivasis and migrant caretakers of the forests that she writes about. Late Bangladeshi novelist Shahidul Zahir’s Life and Political Reality, also published by HarperCollins and translated from the original Bengali by V. Ramaswamy and Shahroza Nahrin, is made up of two novellas that cemented his reputation within Bangladesh. The stories, both set in the context of the 1971 Bangladesh War for Liberation, offer a haunting dissection of idealism, empathy, and compromise. Last but not the least, B. Jeyamohan’s Stories of the True, published by Juggernaut, is a collection of twelve stories, woven from real-life encounters and instances, deftly translated by Priyamvada Kumar from Tamil to English. The myriad characters featured here help complicate the idea of an absolute truth, with nuance and insight, and are all rooted in the experience of living on Tamil soil and negotiating class, gender, and caste oppressions. The judges for prose this year are Natascha Bruce, Shelley Frisch, Jason Grunebaum, Sawad Hussain, and Lytton Smith. The winners of the prestigious award will be announced on the 11th of this month and will be awarded a prize of $4000.
In other exciting news, the New India Foundation, based in Bengaluru, has opened applications for round two of its six-month Translation Fellowship, and are seeking proposals for translations from 10 Indian languages: Assamese, Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Odia, Tamil and Urdu. The emphasis this year is on non-fiction and historical Indian language texts, and the recipients will receive a stipend of Rs 6 lakh each. This is a very exciting initiative for the Indian literary landscape and offers an unprecedented opportunity for translators to hone their craft. Notably, V. Ramaswamy, a Tamilian who translates from Bengali to English, was himself awarded the Translation Fellowship in 2022 which should be inspiring for anyone aiming to surpass perceived linguistic barriers for the love of translation!
Wambua Muindi, Editor-at-Large, reporting on Kenya
On October 11, Keabetswe Molotsi, a Motswana writer, was declared the 2023 winner of the Kendeka Short Story Prize for her short story Matlhalerwa. This announcement was made at the Fourteen Falls Leisure Lodge in Thika, Kenya. The Prize is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short story, either fiction or creative non-fiction. The prize was founded by the Kenyan writer and publisher Andrew Maina in 2021 and Jenny Robson from Botswana was the inaugural winner for her short story Water for Wine. With two Motswana writers winning the award in its first two years, Southeastern Africa is carving a literary space for itself by tapping into its tapestry of realism punctuated by stylistic innovation and thematic nuance.
On October 27, NuriaBookstore hosted its second edition of AuthorsUnleashed at Baraza Media Lab. Composed of mainly self-published authors, the panel included Silas Nyanchwani, author of 50 Memos to Men, Joan Thatiah, author of Things I Will Tell My Daughter, Jacob Aliet of Unplugged and Dommie Namasaka of Because We Are People. The discussion explored the subject of masculinity and feminism and included critical reflections on the topic based on the work of writers whose creative energies have been dedicated to such questions.
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