In this week’s round-up of literary news from around the world, our editors report on an exciting translation-centric colloquium in Mexico, a prestigious award going to a new translation of one of North Macedonia’s most canonical novels, and the Frankfurt Book Fair’s spotlighting of the Philippines in its 2025 edition—a choice that has met resistance from local publishers due to the fair’s Zionist sympathies.
René Esaú Sánchez, Editor-at-Large, reporting for Mexico
They say that no matter what you do, there is always a saint from which you can ask for help. In the case of translators, that is Saint Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin. Following the Council of Trent, his translation became the official Latin Bible in the western hemisphere.
With this in mind, the fourth Coloquio de Traducción Literaria San Jerónimo (Saint Jerome Literary Translation Colloquium) took place last week in Veracruz, Mexico. The event was dedicated to fully immersing participants in the art of translation and fostering discussions on what it truly means to translate. It was organized by the Culture Office of Veracruz and the independent publishing company Aquelarre Ediciones, which also sponsors a prize dedicated to literary translation.
Among the participants were notable figures such as Fabián Espejel, the recent winner of the Bellas Artes Margarita Michelena Literary Translation Award; Mario Murguía, who won the same prize last year; José Miguel Barajas, the translator of Mallarmé into Spanish; and José Luis Rivas, a poet who has translated works by Derek Walcott, John Donne, Ezra Pound, William Shakespeare, and T.S. Eliot.
It is worth mentioning that although the word “colloquium” often carries academic connotations, this event was organised with an approach of cultural management. It was even planned to coincide with the celebrations of Saint Jerome in Coatepec. In this sense, the colloquium felt more like a public festival in which anyone could participate and develop their interest in translation. In fact, Mario Murguía led a “translation laboratory”, where participants could translate a piece of literature under his guidance.
“The main objective was to make this event a voice for the literary translation profession. To reach Coatepec, you have to cross a bridge, and the job of translation is essentially that—a bridge. It’s no coincidence that we share a saint with the town,” said Alejandra Martínez, one of the creators of the colloquium.
Although it is relatively new, the reach of this edition is beginning to establish the event as an important venue for literary translation in Mexico. There may be no Council of Trent for this, but perhaps with Saint Jerome’s blessing, the colloquium could become the official translation event for this part of the world.
Sofija Popovska, Editor-at-Large, reporting from North Macedonia
Autumn is the perfect time to return to the classics. With the recent news that Benjamin Langer has received the DRAGI award for his German-language translation of Petre M. Andreevski’s Pirej (Couch Grass), this adage is proven to be true in Macedonian literature as well. Pirej’s status as a cultural staple in Macedonian culture (and school curricula) is comparable to that of War and Peace or The Scarlet Letter. Despite these possibly unexciting parallels, however, Andreevski’s historical novel is far from being stuffy and archaic; even now, its characters, twists, and turns retain their lacerating realism. Given its enduring vigour, it is unsurprising that Langer had translated the novel—originally published in 1980—in 2017, but his work is receiving its laurels only now, seven years later. The DRAGI award—given to translations from the Macedonian into other languages—is allotted to work that is “current”; boasts good “reviews, influence; encourages interest in the author”; receives “recognition”; and “expands intercultural dialogue”. Pirej is all this and more; its wounded yet hopeful bittersweetness still speaks to the Macedonian public at large.
Petre M. Andreevski (born in Sloeštica in 1934) is best known for his contribution to children’s literature, his poetry collection Denicija (1968), and the aforementioned Pirej (1980). Set during the Balkan Wars, WWI, and the Interwar period, Pirej’s narrative follows the married couple Jon and Velika, who live in a small village in the mountains. Attempting to navigate the painful terrain of famine, loss, and PTSD, their precariousness is intensified by the political situation specific to Macedonians; without the power necessary to represent themselves in international conflicts, they are forcibly mobilized by whoever is able to take them prisoner—which often meant that family members were frequently forced to fight on opposite sides. Jon exemplifies the impact of witnessing coerced fratricide; once courageous and kind, he loses all semblance of humanity by the end of the novel, becoming a sadistic, cynical husk of the person he once was. Amidst the desolation, a fragile hope persists, embodied by Velika’s last child, born in the final chapter. Like the eponymous couch grass, Pirej tells the story of how the Macedonian people have survived these tribulations, saving space for a better future.
Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Editor-at-Large, reporting from the Philippines
Despite countless calls for demands by more than five hundred publishers from fifty countries for the Frankfurter Buchmesse/Frankfurt Book Fair (FBM) to denounce its ties with the Israeli genocidal apartheid state (collected through Publishers for Palestine), the Philippines’ National Book Development Board (NBDB) will be participating in the book fair this mid-October. Without much surprise, the Philippines is even set to serve as the fair’s Guest of Honour for its 2025 instalment—something that seems to be a point of pride.
In October 2023, Litprom, an organisation associated with the festival that focuses on international literature, revoked the LiBeraturpreis that was to be bestowed to Eine Nebensache (translated by Günther Orth), the German translation of Palestinian writer Adania Shibli’s Booker Prize-longlisted novel Tafṣīl Ṯānawī (Minor Detail). This censorship against Palestinian voices has been criticised by over a thousand authors, including Annie Ernaux, Adbulrazak Gurnah, and Olga Tokarczuk. FBM director Juergen Boos, however, continued to stick to Zionist talking points in a press release, and the book fair is among a list of Zionist-complicit literary institutes.
Can a genuine literary community be found in a book fair unapologetically complicit to Israel, whose national military has carpet-bombed writers, journalists, publishers, archives, libraries, and schools in Palestine—cultural producers and caretakers of the written word? The Committee to Protect Journalists calls this carnage “the deadliest period for journalists” with one hundred and sixteen journalists and media workers killed (mostly by the Israeli Defense Forces airstrikes), amounting to 75% of all journalists killed in 2023. Poets, novelists, and playwrights are being murdered: Heba Abu Nada, Yousef Dawis, Omar Abu Shaweesh, Refaat Alareer, Inas al-Saqa, Jihad Al-Masri, and the list goes on.
As FBM lands its spotlight on the NBDB, one wonders: despite the efforts of local arts and culture agencies to lobby Philippine literature to a global audience, why does the “visibility” of Filipino-language titles remain unseen and unfelt—as Publisher’s Weekly’s Translation Database reveals? This is what happens on the ground: while translators from other Asian countries have institutionalised support (e.g. LTI Korea or South Asian Literature in Translation Project), translators of Filipino literature must largely persist without specialised government support and funding.
Faye Cura, founder of feminist indie Gantala Press (one of the signatories of Publishers for Palestine), wrote about her experience at FBM in 2019: “[The book fair] showed how mainstream publishing operated. One, it celebrated individual authors, especially bestsellers and prize winners. Two, it was motivated by profit.” Cura, who brought Gantala Press titles (including cookbooks to support striking workers and Muslim Filipinos displaced by the war; a zine of poems by peasant women; and memoirs by nurses, farmers, and migrant workers), emphasised the financial priorities of the festival by revealing: “Not one title was picked up for translation … our booth was visited by ordinary fairgoers, not agents or business people.”
When Philippine arts and culture agencies pander to western empire, it echoes the country’s own kleptocratic regime; the second Marcosian government has officially supported an “immediate ceasefire” of the war in Palestine, but only after three months (and thousands of dead bodies). In late 2023, headlines like “Israeli envoy thanks Marcos, Filipinos for show of solidarity” and “Marcos reaffirms PH support for Israel in meeting with Israeli envoy” populated local news outlets, and unsurprisingly, the same platforms have so far framed the ongoing seventy-six-year genocide as anything but that, opting instead to call it the “Israel-Hamas conflict” or the “Israel-Gaza war” (progressive publications, such as Bulatlat and Pinoy Weekly, are notable exceptions).
Apart from Gantala Press, other Philippines-based publishers that have joined the Publishers for Palestine coalition include Everything’s Fine, Balangay Books, Lomboy Press, Kwago Publishing Lab, Alfredo F. Tadiar Library, and Aklat Alamid. Educational resources for publishers, editors, writers, and translators such as the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) Movement and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) are accessible online.
As of 26 September 2024, Ceasefire Tracker estimates that more than 245,160 people have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank.
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