This week, our editors-at-large take us many places, from one book fair by the sea and one in the neighborhood that was once home to Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Read on for news about new bookstore openings, sonic poetry readings, and upcoming chapbook publications!
Alan Mendoza Sosa, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Mexico
The International Book Fair of Coyoacán (FILCO) is taking place from June 7 to 16 in the historic Mexico City neighborhood internationally famous for having been the home of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. The event features stands from more than one hundred and fifty Mexican and international publishers, as well as two hundred events ranging from concerts and dance performances to book launches and roundtables. Among this year’s panelists are cultural luminaries such as the Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú, the descendants of Mexican historical figures like Emiliano Zapata, and the writer and Asymptote contributor Elena Poniatowska.
I visited the book fair on Saturday, June 9 for a presentation of the most recent book by Rocío Cerón, globally acclaimed experimental Mexican poet and recent Asymptote contributor. Simultáneo sucesivo is a collection that explores the sonic power of language. During her talk, Cerón emphasized how we live surrounded by sound but rarely reflect on its affective qualities. She demonstrated these qualities by reading from her book with her characteristic performance style: repeating words, modulating her volume, pitch and tone, and varying her speed. This performance style has the power to minimize language’s semantic qualities and foreground its sonic properties. She also played tracks of sound art that accompany the collection. These feature Cerón’s voice, but also include drone, ambient, and electronic sounds that induce a trance on listeners. Cerón’s performance, abstract poetry, and sound art liberate both language and sound from their utilitarian and practical everyday purposes, inviting listeners and readers to experience the texture, timbre, and materiality of language beyond its meaning.
Simultáneo sucesivo is the third installment of Cerón’s trilogy challenging the way in which we relate to language. The other two books in the series are Spectio (2019) and Divisible corpóreo (2022), which Cerón has presented in events around the world.
Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Editor-at-Large, reporting from the Philippines
Among the chapbooks coming out later this month as part of indie press Aklat Ulagad’s “Signap” series are Asymptote contributors Stefani J Alvarez’s mula sa Mahal Kong Sol (from Dear Sol) and Jhio Jan Navarro’s Pagaspas ng mga Munting Pakpak (Flutter of Little Flights).
An excursion of the dagli in the diaristic and the anti-essay, Alvarez’s mula sa Mahal Kong Sol is a series of letters addressed to Sol, an imagined personification of the 255-year-old castle of Akademie Schloss Solitude—the German government-funded international artist fellowship in Stuttgart where Alvarez is an alumna writer-in-residence. In a forthcoming translator’s note, I view Mahal Kong Sol under the lens of the trans epistolary, a genre within trans life writing, and trans nonfiction. Antithetical to autobiography, the trans epistolary is where intertextuality, nonlinear thought, and intimacy are brought to terms, enabling the trans persona to speak confidingly without the arm-twisting dictate of disclosure. Excerpts from Mahal Kong Sol, both her Filipino original and my English translation, are available in the latest edition of Alvarez’s Schloss serial The Gagazine / Ang Gagasin.
Pagaspas ng mga Munting Pakpak by Bago City, Negros Occidental-born trilingual poet Navarro, on the other hand, is an exemplary case of Filipino-language nature writing—in particular, a contribution to what ecocritics read as Insect Poetics, a long tradition from Tang dynasty’s shansui shi (a genre of classical Chinese poetry) to Octavia Butler. A selection from Navarro’s sublime ecopoetry in translation from his Hiligaynon native-tongue appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation and Asymptote’s Translation Tuesday. Other titles from the Signap chapbook series are Emir Gamis’ Paghihintay (Waiting), MJ Rafal’s pagkat, ikaw, banal, ang aking, liwanag, dilim (because, you, holy, are my, light, shadow), and Ronald Verzo’s May hindi maalaalang mga pangalan (There are names forgotten).
Based in coastal Virac in the northeast Philippine island province of Catanduanes, Aklat Ulagad is founded by Norma Lowry Memorial Prize-winning poet Allan Popa, also an Asymptote contributor.
Wambua Muindi Editor-at-Large, reporting from Nairobi
Few book fairs can pride themselves on being held by the sea. Mombasa Regional Book Fair 2024 is the exception. This year’s instalment was held at the historic Mama Ngina Waterfront on the Indian Ocean from May 29 to June 1. The four-day book extravaganza organized by the Kenya Publishers Association featured book launches, book exhibitions and children’s activities.
The excitement of being by the sea added a layer of extra flavour to the many offerings of the fair at the association’s twenty-fifth year of promoting literacy. Mombasa County hosted this year’s edition of the regional fair that seeks to contribute to the promotion of books, education and a culture of reading among the public by ensuring decentralized access to publishers (many of whom operate out of Nairobi).
While the fair has ended, book lovers in Nairobi have more to smile about! On Friday, June 7, Soma Nami Books, the award-winning, women-founded and -led Pan-African bookstore, opened a new branch in Nairobi’s Ngara area. This brings the store’s presence in Nairobi up to three locations and two permanent stores, their other locations being their Greenhouse Mall Ngong Road flagship and a Lower Kabete pop-up store. The grand opening festivities ran from Friday through Sunday and featured book signings, meet and greets, storytelling and poetry readings.
A statement shared with Asymptote read, in part:
This new branch holds special significance for us because it represents a significant step forward in our mission to amplify African narratives. The incredible support we have received for Soma Nami Books over the past three years has underscored a growing desire for spaces that honour our identity, uniqueness and stories, which has pushed us to dream bigger. Soma Nami 2.0 is therefore a natural evolution, a response to the call for more community-centric spaces that truly feel like home.
Talk about a bookstore on a mission! Akin to the original store, this one is spacious enough for bookish events, offers a broad catalogue and has a Wall of Fame featuring individuals who embody a Pan-African literary ethos. Be sure to check out the new store!
*****
Read more on the Asymptote blog: