Posts by Julia Sherwood

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

April 22, 2022  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Alan Mendoza Sosa and Julia Sherwood

Longlists and talks in Slovakia and Mexico

This week, our editors-at-large report on paper shortages, literature prize longlists, and efforts to deconstruct the writing workshop. Read on to find out more!

Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting on Slovakia

Over the past year, Slovakia has not escaped the paper shortages that have affected the publishing industry all over the world, increasing printing costs and extending production times which, in turn, led to fewer titles being published. All this is likely to push up the price of books, in some cases by as much as 10-20 per cent, making Slovak readers, who already tend to spend less on books than their counterparts in many other European countries,  even more reluctant to buy new works of literature, particularly by Slovak authors.

On 9 March, the longlist of Slovakia’s  most prestigious literary prize, the Anasoft Litera, was announced. The eclectic mix of nominations includes new works by four previous winners, two of them past Asymptote contributors: Šesť cudzincov (Six Foreigners, excerpt here) by Marek Vadas, and Balla’s ‘polyphonic novel’ Medzi ruinami (Amidst the Ruins), as well as Stanislav Rakús’s Ľútostivosť (Mournfulness) and Ivan Medeši’s Vilkovia (Two Vilkos). The longlist features two other previous Anasoft Litera nominees: Ivana Dobrakovová for her latest novel Pod slnkom Turína (Under the Sun of Turin) and Vanda Rozenbergová with Zjedla som Lautreca (I’ve Eaten Lautrec), and two further women writers, Ivana Micenková with Krv je len voda (Blood Is Only Water) and Nicol Hochholczerová with her taboo-breaking  debut Táto izba sa nedá zjesť (This Room Is Inedible). Another debut, Lukáš Onderčanin’s Utópia v Leninovej záhrade: Československá komúna Interhelpo (Utopia in Lenin’s Garden: The Czechoslovak Commune Interhelpo), is the first book of literary reportage to make it onto the longlist, while Arpád Soltész’s thriller Zlodej (The Thief) is the second genre novel in the prize’s history deemed worthy of inclusion among the top ten titles.

On 17 March the town council of Kremnica, a medieval gold-mining town and site of the world’s oldest still-working mint, unanimously approved an application to set up the first European Translators’ House in Slovakia. Named Zechenter House after the doctor, travel writer, and journalist Gustáv Kazimír Zechenter Laskomerský (1824-1908), it is expected to open its doors in two year’s time. The organisations behind the initiative are SOS Kremnica, a local NGO for the preservation of the town’s crumbling architectural heritage, and  Mona Sentimental, run by translators Renáta Deáková and past Asymptote contributors Eva Andrejčáková and Gabriela Magová.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

March 11, 2022  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Erica X Eisen, Julia Sherwood, and Lee Yew Leong

In which we discuss the International Booker Prize longlist and bring you literary news from Poland and Uzbekistan!

This week, our editors from around the world discuss the 2022 International Booker longlist (released just yesterday), the Polish literary world’s reaction to the war in Ukraine, and literary nationalism in Uzbekistan. Read on to find out more!

Lee Yew Leong, Editor-in-Chief, on the 2022 International Booker Prize Longlist

The longlist for the 2022 International Booker Prize landed yesterday and we’re chuffed to see so many of our past contributors (20!), former team members (five!), and Book club titles (two!) on it! We’re especially thrilled for Anton Hur, who debuted in a big way by making the cover of our Fall 2016 edition with his translation of Jung Young Su’s “Aficionados” (we are proud to have played a small role in ”changing his life,” as he himself attests). Hur has not one but two titles on the 13-book list—a feat which, as far as we know, has never been accomplished before in the (admittedly short) history of the International Booker Prize. You can find his very smart metafictional essay on translating Bora Chung from our Winter 2021 issue here (accompanied by a translation into the Korean by Chung herself!); Hur also facilitates Rose Bialer’s interview with Sang Young Park here (both Chung and Park appear respectively with Cursed Bunny and Love in a Big City).

In stark contrast to last year’s longlist, which saw only one work from Asia included, this year was a bumper year for Asian representation, with five titles—among these, nominees Norman Erikson Pasaribu and translator Tiffany Tsao also first appeared together in Asymptote (read their debut in English here). We extend our warmest congratulations to editor-at-large David Boyd, whose co-translation, with Samuel Bett, of Mieko Kawakami’s Heaven—Kawakami’s inclusion this year makes up for the glaring omission of Breasts and Eggs last year—is also nominated. Before we let you check out the list on your own, we note, with no small measure of delight, that Phenotypes, our Book Club pick for January 2022, and After the Sun, our Book Club pick for August 2021, were also selected for the longlist, proving that joining our Book Club is one of the best ways to encounter tomorrow’s prizewinners today. Find our interviews with the two respective author-and-translator duos here (Paulo Scott and Daniel Hahn) and here (Jonas Eika and Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg). Best of luck to all nominees—and may the worthiest pair (or trio) win!

Erica X Eisen, Blog Editor, reporting on Uzbekistan

The month of February saw celebrations in honor of the 581st birthday of the poet Alisher Navoi, a key figure in the history of Central Asian literature who was born in 1441 in what was then the Timurid Empire. While festivities occurred in several countries of the former Soviet Union, they were most pronounced in Uzbekistan, where Navoi’s work is seen as foundational for the country’s national literature. In various parts of the country, admirers of the poet held readings of his ghazals and reflected on his life and legacy.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

February 18, 2022  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Alan Mendoza Sosa, Julia Sherwood, and Kristina Tatarian

Literary festivals, translation contests, and more from Mexico, Armenia, and the Czech Republic!

This month has seen the publication of new essays in Mexico highlighting the importance of editors, literary festivals in the Armenian capital, and the screening of restored screen adaptations of Czech literary classics. Read on to find out more!

Alan Mendoza Sosa, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Mexico

The literary community has not been discouraged by the global pandemic. February is already blooming with a host of literary events and new publications, some of which—announced early to build excitement—will reach readers later in the year.

On February 4 and 5, the fourth edition of the Kerouac International Festival took place. The event featured poetry readings and performances, showcasing work that disturbs traditional boundaries between visual art, music, and literary creation. The festival takes place every year in Vigo, New York, and Mexico City. This year, the lineup included several nationally and internationally recognized poets. Among them was Hubert Matiúwàa, who has been translated by Paul M. Worley for Asymptote. Poet Rocío Cerón also participated in the festival, presenting performances that blurred the lines between digital art and poetry. Shortly after the Kerouac Festival, she also kicked off a solo video art and poetry exhibition called Potenciales Evocados (Evoked Potentials), hosted in the convent where Early Modern poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz lived.

Four hours north of Mexico City, in the state of Querétaro, another event of international importance took place: the publication of Editar Guerra y paz (Editing War and Peace) by the independent publishing house Gris Tormenta. Written by Argentine editor Mario Muchnik, the book is part of Gris Tormenta’s Editors Collection, a series that highlights the work behind designing, planning, and putting out a book.

Finally, February also brought thrilling news to writers. Translated by seasoned Asymptote contributor Christina MacSweeney, Daniel Saldaña Paris‘s novel Ramifications was featured in the longlist of the Dublin Literary Award. Similarly, poet, translator, Asymptote contributor, and champion of contemporary literature in Spanish Robin Myers had her poem “Diego de Montomayor” selected for the compilation The Best American Poetry 2022.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

January 21, 2022  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Carol Khoury, Erica X Eisen, and Julia Sherwood

New festivals, publications, and films from Slovakia, Palestine, and Kazakhstan!

This winter, festivals and events across the globe introduce new literature in translation, while literary magazines and film festival screenings amplify underrepresented voices. In Slovakia, recent works explore sexual identity, the weight of twentieth-century history, and trauma. From Palestine, Arablit and Arablit Quarterly launched its first “In Focus” section, spotlighting Iraqi literature. In Kazakhstan, the film Akyn highlights the political power of writing, acquiring greater significance in the context of recent governmental restrictions on free speech. Read on to find out more!

Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting on Slovakia

In October 2021, Barbora Hrínová was declared the winner of Slovakia’s most prestigious literary prize, the Anasoft Litera. The jury praised her remarkable debut collection Jednorožce (Unicorns) for writing “about otherness without exoticizing or exploiting it, thus enabling us to accept different ways of life or the search for identity.” As the author herself put in a recent interview: “Otherness in Unicorns occurs on two levels; one is literal, where the characters from the LGBTI+ community belong by definition, and the other is universal, all-human; after all, every person is a minority in their own right. I didn’t want to emphasize the element of sexual identity or outward difference in the characters, because I think that such people are part of everyday life and no different from the majority in any essential way. Rather, I was interested in and irritated by the way they are perceived by society, which often reacts very dismissively and critically to even a minor deviation from the norm. I wanted to create a space in the stories where we could also look at the ‘different characters,’ or a variety of shortcomings in a somewhat more human way.” The fact that Hrínová’s collection also won the 2021 René Prize, chosen by secondary school students, testifies to the author’s empathetic handling of a sensitive subject.

November 2021 marked the centennial of the passing of Slovakia’s national poet, Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav. This brief video, recorded for the Slovak consulate in New York City by Columbia University professor Christopher W. Harwood, is a great primer for anyone not familiar with Hviezdoslav’s work. Literature scholar Charles Sabatos gave a captivating Zoom talk on Gejza Vámoš (1901–1956), another Slovak writer not yet widely known in the English-speaking world. Sabatos, who is translating Vámos’s seminal Atómy boha (God’s Atoms), published in 1928 and 1933, focused on issues of language and identity in this book, summed up by one critic as “a novel of heroism and syphilis.”

While this translation awaits publication, two recent works by contemporary Slovak writers appeared in October, inaugurating Seagull Books‘s Slovak list: Boat Number Five by Monika Kompaníková (translated by Janet Livingstone) and Necklace/Choker by Jana Bodnárová (translated by Jonathan Gresty). TranslatorsAloud features excerpts from both books: a bilingual reading by the author and translator in one case and a reading by the translator in the other, while an interview with Jana Bodnárová is available on Trafika Europa Radio.

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Thoroughly Mainstream or Decidedly Alternative: An Interview with František Malík

December 16, 2021  |  in Interviews  |  by Julia Sherwood

The arts are indispensable as a way of sensitizing people, contributing to equality, pointing out what is truly important, and setting priorities.

František Malík is an extremely busy man. Just over the past few months, he has organized several book festivals; the Martinus Literature Tent at Slovakia’s largest music festival, Pohoda; and several episodes of the literature review podcast, LQ (Literárny kvocient)—to name just a few. Editor-at-Large for Slovakia Julia Sherwood has managed to catch him in a rare moment of respite, and in the following interview, they discuss various facets of arts and literature in Slovakia today.

Julia Sherwood (JS): For a country of five million, Slovakia has a quite an astonishing number of literary festivals taking place throughout the year. You have been associated with several of them, most notably the BRaK Literature Festival. How did this festival start, and what makes it different from all the others? 

František Malík (FM): Eight years ago, when we started BRaK, the Slovak literary scene was far less diversified than it is today. While it is true that we now have more literary festivals than we used to, I wouldn’t go as far as to claim that it’s a disproportionate amount for a country of five million. Not long ago, I visited Iceland with a group of Slovak writers; Iceland’s population is less than one-tenth the size of Slovakia’s, and yet its cultural and literature policies are much more advanced and the arts receive far more funding. They also have quite a few literary festivals. This is just one example; a similar trend can be seen in all developed countries.

If I may correct you slightly—what we have emphasized right from the start is that BRaK is a book festival. This is not just a terminological difference, it also has to do with the content. We try to see a book—an aggregate of various artistic approaches—in a holistic way, rather than focusing solely on the literary element. At BRaK, we highlight all the constituent parts of the book—from publishers at the centre of the festival, graphic designers and illustrators who often host workshops, to copyeditors and translators, as well as writers. BRaK has always striven to be international and to showcase the greatest names throughout the book world, not just from Slovakia and the neighbouring countries.

JS: Of the various festivals you have organized, which do you regard as the most successful and which were the most fun?

FM: In the course of eleven years on the scene, I’ve helped to launch several festivals, and I’ve also been fortunate to work with some great teams. I like your question—having fun, and enjoying something in the broadest sense is what really matters, although the COVID-19 pandemic has taken some of the fun out of it.

I enjoy organizing everything I’m involved in. For example, I really enjoyed the first edition of the Slovak/Czech festival Cez prah/Přes práh (Over the Doorstep), an apartment festival now in its fifth year. It’s held in actual homes in the centre of the capital, Bratislava, but also in apartments that have since gained the status of institutions, as there is a growing trend to hold cultural events in flats. In the previous regime, flats played a specific cultural role. They served as educational and cultural institutions, as venues for lectures in philosophy, theatre performances, exhibitions . . . People were driven out of official venues and into their homes. Over the Doorstep aims to commemorate these flats and the role they played.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

December 10, 2021  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Eva Wissting and Julia Sherwood

News this week from Sweden and Central Europe!

This week, we bring you news from Sweden and Central Europe! In Sweden, Eva Wissting reports on the annual Stockholm literature fair and recent acclaim for writer Merete Mazzarella, while Julia Sherwood highlights lively readings across Central Europe from the 2021 European Literature Days and Visegrad Café program. Read on to find out more!

Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden

The annual literary fair, Stockholms Litteraturmässa, was held last weekend, for the fourth time, after having been cancelled two years in a row due to renovations two years ago and last year because of COVID restrictions. The fair, which is a single day event with no entrance fee, is meant to highlight the diversity of Swedish publishers. This year, it included an exhibit of around fifty publishers and magazines. There were also author talks and lectures on subjects ranging from democracy, climate, translation ethics, to literature about real events, as well as storytime events for the younger visitors and poetry readings. The theme of “the printed book” was meant to reflect current affairs in the publishing industry and was chosen because it can no longer be taken for granted that literature is read in its conventional printed book form.

Last week, the Swedish Academy announced that it is awarding Merete Mazzarella the 2021 Finlandspris (Finland Prize), which amounts to just over ten thousand US dollars, for her work in the Swedish-speaking cultural life of Finland. Swedish is the first language of about five percent of the Finnish population and one of the two official languages in the country. Mazzarella, who was born in 1945 in Helsinki, is a literary scholar and a writer who has published over thirty books since her debut in 1979. Her most recent book, Från höst till höst (From autumn to autumn), is an essayistic journal about living as an elderly person through the pandemic and its restrictions. Her books have been translated to Finnish, Danish, and German. Previous recipients of the award include author and journalist Kjell Westö (The Wednesday Club).

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Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

November 12, 2021  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Darren Huang, Jovanka Kalaba, and Julia Sherwood

News this week from the Czech Republic, Taiwan, and Serbia!

This week, our editors are bringing news of their vigorously alive world literatures. From a celebration of Czech letters at the Warsaw Book Fair and the Prague MicroFestival, to a commemoration of iconic Taiwanese writer Li Qiao, to a push for Serbian women’s voices in a collection of short stories—the ongoing efforts of writers, presses, and translators around the world indicate always towards greater and greater realms of understanding.

Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting from the Czech Republic

Held from September 9 to 12, the Warsaw Book Fair was one of the first major industry events to make a comeback after the pandemic-enforced hiatus, with the Czech Republic as the guest of honour. The timing was quite fortuitous, since barely two months after the event, cases were again surging in these two countries, as well as in most of Europe.

Czech literature has been enjoying a real boom among Polish readers, and this was reflected in the strong contingent of leading Czech writers who came to Warsaw. They included Michal Ajvaz, Bianca Bellová, David Böhm, Petr Hruška, Alena Mornštajnová, Iva Procházková, Jaroslav Rudiš, Marek Šindelka, and Kateřina Tučková. Past Asymptote contributor Radka Denemarková—who drew the largest crowds—felt that “in recent times, it has been particularly important for us writers to show solidarity—especially with countries such as Poland and Hungary—creating a kind of enclave of humanism.”

Also popular with Polish readers was a meeting with Petra Hůlová, who presented the Polish translation of her 2018 novel Stručné dějiny hnutí (A Brief History of the Movement), a book she describes as “a feminist manifesto and critique of feminism rolled in one.” Her “provocative satire of a feminist future challenges and unsettles in equal parts” (Kirkus Reviews) has just been published by World Editions as The Movement, in Alex Zucker’s English translation. You can read an excerpt from the book here as well as in BODY.Literature, the Prague-based English-language literary journal whose fall issue also features poetry by Karel Šebek (trans. Ondřej Pazdírek) and Pavla Melková (trans. Joshua Mensch), as well as a chilling absurdist story by Vratislav Kadlec (trans. Graeme Dibble).

On October 18, Hůlová and Zucker read from and discussed The Movement in an event organized by Czech Centre New York. Their conversation (now available to watch on YouTube) also included the writer-translator pair Kateřina Tučková and Veronique Firkusny and the novel Gerta, published by AmazonCrossing earlier this year. On November 22, Firkusny will be featured again as part of European Literature Night, organized by the Czech Centre; she will appear with Elena Sokol, as their joint translation of the final part of past Asymptote contributor Daniela Hodrová’s trilogy, City of Torment, is soon to be published by Jantar Publishing. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

October 22, 2021  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Julia Sherwood and Peera Songkünnatham

The latest news from Poland and Thailand !

This week our writers bring you the latest news from Poland and Thailand! In Poland, Julia Sherwood takes us through the Conrad Festival, the 2021 winner of the prestigious NIKE Prize, and the launch of the first ecopoetics course in the country. In Thailand, Peera Songkünnatham explains how an innovative series of illustrated children’s books have risked censorship for their depiction of government protests. Read on to find out more! 

Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Poland

Tomorrow, 24 October, is the closing day of the 13th edition of the Conrad Festival that started in Kraków on 18 October headlined “The Nature of the Future”, which has sought to “imagine the shape of our near and distant future, all while thinking about the changes that we are going to witness in the natural environment”, as well as highlighting themes of feminism. International literary heavyweights—Han Kang, Rebecca Solnit, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, Valeria Luiselli, Helena Janeczek, Elias Khoury, Lisa Appignanesi, Behrouz Boochani, Brandon Hobson, George Saunders and Petra Hůlová—as well as acclaimed Polish writers such as Julia Fiedorczuk, Mikołaj Grynberg and Dorota Masłowska have been taking part in discussions and presentations, held mostly online (the recordings can be watched on the festival’s YouTube channel.)

2021 NIKE Prize, Poland’s most prestigious literary award went to Kajś, Opowieść o Górnym Śląsku (Somewhere,  A Tale of Upper Silesia), in which its author, Zbigniew Rokita, searches for his Silesian roots and grapples with his own ambivalent feelings about his native region. The decision to shortlist only one work of fiction while all the other books, including the winning title, represented nonfiction, caused some controversy. However, this is hardly surprising given the strong position of literary reportage in contemporary Polish literature. The genre even has its own award, the Kapuściński Prize (this year it went to Jessica Bruder’s Nomadland , translated into Polish by Martyna Tomczak) and its own teaching institution, the Warsaw Institute of Reportage whose founders and teachers include the most celebrated reportage authors Mariusz Szczygieł, Paweł Goźliński, and Wojciech Tochman. 

Last year Filip Springer, one of the Institute’s teachers launched a new course, The School of Ecopoetics, the first of its kind in Poland. Feeling the need  to explore what individuals and writers can do to prevent an ecological disaster, Springer, a writer and photographer (and past Asymptote contributor), approached the poet, translator, and literary critic Julia Fiedorczuk who is a leading exponent of ecopoetics in Poland (and also a past Asymptote contributor) to design the programme. Although the course was aimed at writers, poets, journalists, and critics, the organizers stressed that the School of Ecopoetics “is not a school of writing”. Instead, “its goal is to help the students develop ecocritical reflection, to change their way of thinking by drawing attention to the relations between human beings and non-human nature.”  Judging by the enthusiastic responses shared by some of the first twenty graduates on the School’s Facebook page, the mix of traditional lectures and fieldwork (hiking through forests, sleeping in tents and discussions around the campfire) held from June 2020 to October 2021, was a resounding success. Recruitment for next year’s course starts in November.   READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

September 10, 2021  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Julia Sherwood and Thirangie Jayatilake

Music festivals, poetry readings, and the launch of a new dawn in academic publishing in Sri Lanka!

This  week, our editors on the ground report from events and lectures, spanning large-scale festivals and intimate readings. Julia Sherwood discusses a spotlight on Slovak authors at Month of Authors’ Readings, and Thirangie Jayatilake is here with notes from a talk regarding the current state of Sri Lankan academic publishing. Read on for more!

Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Slovakia

Over the summer, literary organizers in Slovakia have tentatively returned to live events, mostly held in the open air. Audience sizes were kept smaller and featured mostly domestic authors because of continuing travel restrictions. Many of these events were streamed and can be watched later—this hybrid format may be one positive legacy of the pandemic.

Slovak writers were the guests of honour at Central Europe’s largest literary festival, the annual Month of Authors’ Readings (MAČ) organized by Větrné mlýny, a publishing house in Brno, Czech Republic and, on the Slovak side, by Literárnyklub.sk. Though the number of locations and participating writers was slightly scaled down, its ambition was certainly not, with thirty-one pairs of Slovak and Czech authors reading from their works every day of the month in both Bratislava and Brno, with some also travelling to Ostrava and Lviv in neighbouring Ukraine. Videos of all readings are available on the MAČ website alongside podcast interviews with the Slovak writers.

Although Pohoda, Slovakia’s largest outdoor music festival, was held from July 7 to 11 at its usual location—a former airfield in Trenčín—was limited to one thousand spectators per day, undaunted publisher Kali Bagala continued the tradition of presenting established as well as emerging authors at the Martinus Literary Tent (sponsored by the bookselling chain Martinus and also organized by Literárnyklub.sk). Young poets Richard L. Kramár and Michal Baláž introduced their second poetry collections, and Lukáš Onderčanin talked about Utópia v Leninovej záhrade [A Utopia in Lenin’s Garden], his documentary novel about some thousand idealistic men and women from Czechoslovakia who headed for Kyrgyzstan in the 1920s to help build socialism. Acclaimed poet and writer and past Asymptote contributor Jana Beňová discussed her latest non-fiction book of rambles around Bratislava, Flanérova košeľa (The Flâneur’s Shirt). There were readings by authors shortlisted for this year’s Anasoft Litera Prize, Ivana Gibová (Eklektik Bastard) and Zuzana Šmatláková (Nič sa nestalo/Nothing Happened),  as well as by Alenka Sabuchová whose novel Šeptuchy (The Whisperers) won the award in 2020. A sample from The Whisperers can be heard on the LIC_Online YouTube Channel, along with excerpts from several other books by contemporary Slovak writers in English and German translation. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

August 6, 2021  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Charlie Ng, Julia Sherwood, and Lucas Stewart

Our editors report from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Myanmar, and Hong Kong in this week's roundup of literary news!

“Braid your hair, my boys, with greener leaves / We still have verse among us.” In Adonis’ s long work, “Elegy for the Time at Hand,” the poet enchants with the perseverance of language and beauty throughout all things. This week, our editors from around the world bring news of writers weaving, observing, resisting, and changing the world around them. In the Czech Republic, poetry enjoys its moment in the spotlight. In Myanmar, the illegal regime continues to jail and silence its writers and poets. In Hong Kong, the young generation of writers prove their capabilities, and a new volume of poetry traces the current precarious politics. 

Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting for the Czech Republic

Czech poetry is enjoying something of a moment in the new millennium, says writer and translator Pavla Horáková in the latest installment of her series for Prague Radio International, Czech Books You Must Read, which presents two “poets of the everyday”—Petr Hruška and Milan Děžinský. As his collection, A Secret Life, translated by Nathan Fields, comes out from Blue Diode Publishing, Děžinský—who is also a translator and has introduced Czech readers to leading American poets such as Sharon Olds, Robert Lowell and James Wright—explains in this brief video (in English) how much it means to him that his own work has now found its way to Anglophone readers.

Both Děžinský and Hruška are past recipients of the Magnesia Litera Prize for poetry; this year, the award—the Czech Republic’s most prestigious—went to Pavel Novotný for his collection Zápisky z garsonky (Notes from a Bedsit). Another poet, Daniel Hradecký, bagged the prize in the prose category for Tři kapitoly (Three Chapters), an autofictional work described by one critic as “brimming with cynicism, causticity, alcohol and the existential  philosophy of those on the margins of society.” One of the five authors that Hradecký beat to the prize, Lucie Faulerová, had the consolation of being among the winners of the 2021 EU Prize for Literature, for her novel Smrtholka (The Deathmaiden). You can read an excerpt translated into English by Alex Zucker here. The winner of the 2021 Magnesia Litera Book of of the Year is veteran translator and emeritus professor of English literature Martin Hilský’s Shakespearova Anglie, Portréte doby (Shakespeare’s England. A Portrait of an Age), nominated in the non-fiction category. The jury praised this monumental work, which explores Elizabethan society in extraordinary detail and represents “the culmination of Hilský’s lifelong interest in the work of William Shakespeare and makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of Elizabethan culture.” READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

July 2, 2021  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Carol Khoury, Daljinder Johal, and Julia Sherwood

The latest literary news from Poland, the UK, and Palestine!

This week, our intrepid team members report from around the globe as Poland honors one of the country’s greatest poets, UK independent publishers reckon with new tax regulations, and a Palestinian podcast kicks off with a special video presentation, which also serves as an introduction to some of the brightest lights in Arabic poetry. Dive in!

Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Poland

Long snubbed by Polish literary critics as popular literature, the satirical novel The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma (1932), about the accidental rise of an opportunistic swindler, by the political journalist Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz (1898–1939) remained inaccessible to English-language readers until 2020, when Northwestern University Press brought it out in a translation by Ewa Małachowska-Pasek and Megan Thomas. Their commitment and excellent rendering of the book’s universality made the translator duo worthy recipients of the 2021 Found in Translation Award. Explaining the book’s importance and enduring relevance, Ursula Phillips notes in her #Riveting Review that its “resonance extends well beyond the Poland of 1932: in our age of misinformation, post-truth, fake news, the discrediting of expert knowledge and widespread conspiracy theories, it is not hard to recognise other Dyzmas.”

Modern Poetry in Translation has teamed up with the Polish Book Institute to mark the two hundredth birthday of Cyprian Kamil Norwid (1821–1883). Now recognized as one of Poland’s greatest poets, the visionary romantic spent most of his life in exile and died virtually unpublished, deaf and destitute, in Paris. Hoping to “ignite the gentle curiosity of the imagination of the viewer towards the legacy that this man left in writing and in art that was simply never validated in his lifetime,” animation supremos Brothers Quay have created Vade Mecum, a short visual tribute taking its title from Norwid’s poetry collection. On 21 June MPT released a special digital issue featuring Adam Czerniawski’s translation of Norwid’s last play, Pure Love at Sea-Side Bathing. Set by the French seaside, the play “anticipates Maurice Maetelinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Henry James’s late novels,” says Czerniawski, introducing this work by a “master of the implied, the half-said, the unsaid.” And the journal’s summer 2021 issue will present new commissions from poets Wayne Holloway Smith and Malika Booker, writing in response to Norwid. Back in Poland, as the Cyprian Norwid Prize celebrates its own twentieth birthday, Józef Hen, author of over thirty books, many film scripts and plays, as well as four TV series, has been named winner of the “Award for Lifetime Achievement”. Prizes in the remaining categories—literature, music, visual art and drama—will be announced in September.

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What’s New in Translation: June 2021

June 14, 2021  |  in New in Translation, Reviews  |  by David Boyd, Eva Wissting, and Julia Sherwood

The best and latest from Mexico, Sweden, and Poland!

This month, our selections of excellent works from around the world are manifold with mystery: some historical, some psychological, and some linguistic. From Poland, philosopher Remigiusz Ryziński attempts to figure out the sexual politics behind Michel Foucault’s hasty departure from Warsaw. The newest autobiographical novel from Linda Boström Knausgård contends with the author’s own experiences with electroshock therapy, and its impact on her memories. Lastly, in an essay collection by Mariana Oliver explores the act of moving between the various territories of cities and languages, between familiarity and curiosity. Read on to find out more!

foucault

Foucault in Warsaw by Remigiusz Ryziński, translated from the Polish by Sean Gasper Bye, Open Letter, 2021

Review by Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large for Slovakia

“Michel Foucault came to Poland in October 1958. He took a position as the first director of the newly founded Center for French Culture at the University of Warsaw. It was in Warsaw that he finished his doctoral thesis, later published as History of Madness. Yet in mid-1959, he was forced to leave Poland. The reason was a certain boy, Jurek. No one ever figured out who this boy really was.” With the mystery laid out, Remigiusz Ryziński opens his exploration of this little-known episode in the life of the philosopher as a young man, and his attempt to find out what led to Foucault’s expulsion from Warsaw.

Foucault in Warsaw is the first non-academic book by Remigiusz Ryziński—a Polish philosopher and cultural critic who studied at the Sorbonne—and another addition to Sean Gasper Bye’s impressive portfolio of translations. Combining the techniques of literary reportage with the analytical tools of Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge, Ryziński has unearthed secret police dossiers and trawled through hundreds of pages of reports filed by undercover cops and snitches: “Stories typed or handwritten, full of dates and places, names and connections, meetings, relationships, breakups, love, and suffering. Reading them felt like flipping through someone’s family photo album.” He immersed himself in the press and newsreels from the period, incorporating details, such as the price of everyday goods and statistical information, to conjure up the flavours, textures, and colours of Warsaw—the city that is as much a hero of this book as the philosopher himself, along with “the boys whose company Foucault enjoyed most.”

For those familiar with recent works of Polish literature, Ryziński’s reconstruction of the life of the gay community in Warsaw in the late 1950s will bring to mind Lubiewo, Michał Witkowski’s groundbreaking 2004 novel depicting gay life on Poland’s Baltic coast, before and after the end of communism. While Witkowski’s book presents fictionalised versions of real stories and characters, Ryziński has tracked down the actual people who knew Foucault during his time in Warsaw (including some who were romantically linked to him) or were active on the gay scene at the time. He retraced the places Foucault did—or was likely to—frequent, recreating a detailed topography of Warsaw’s cruising spots: an assortment of cafés and bars from the seedy to the sophisticated, steam baths both ornate and functional, public squares and monuments ideally suited for pulling soldiers, and public toilets such as the French-style urinals known as “mushrooms,” to the bathrooms at the Palace of Culture, considered “the height of luxury.” READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

May 28, 2021  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Jacqueline Leung, Julia Sherwood, and Suhasini Patni

The latest news from Hong Kong, Slovakia, and India!

This week, our writers deliver the latest literary news from Hong Kong, Slovakia, and India. Read about the newest translations to come out of Hong Kong, including works by Duo Duo and Leung Lee-chi. Meanwhile, the pandemic continues to shake the literary world: we hear of how the arts continue to be neglected in Slovakia’s recent recovery plan, and India losing some of her brightest writers amidst this crisis. Despite this, some hopeful signs that things might change. Read on to find out more! 

Jacqueline Leung, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong

Chinese poet Duo Duo’s Words as Grain, translated from the Chinese by award-winning translator Lucas Klein, is out this month. A recipient of the PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant, Words as Grain is a new collection spanning approximately five decades of the poet’s oeuvre since the 1970s, with a full representation of Duo Duo’s work since his return to China from exile in 2004 and a selection of earlier poems. Duo Duo is hailed as an exponent of the Chinese Misty Poets and has been described by essayist and critic Eliot Weinberger as “a political poet who makes no statements; a realist poet in an alternate universe.” One may revisit Duo Duo’s poem, “Promise,” published in Asymptote’s July 2018 issue and translated by Klein, for a taste.

May also sees the publication of Jennifer Feeley’s translation of Hong Kong writer Leung Lee-chi’s short story, “Empty Rooms,” up on Two Lines Journal. A 2020 winner of the Award for Young Artist in Literary Arts by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, Leung is among a younger generation of Hong Kong writers starting to get exposure in the English language. “Empty Rooms” is a response to late novelist Liu Yichang’s short story “Turmoil” depicting the chaos of the 1967 riots through the perspectives of inanimate objects. In a similar vein, “Empty Rooms” portrays the interior of an apartment to piece together moments of memory and departure.

It is also exciting to see the announcement of results for the 7th Bai Meigui Translation Competition organized by The Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing. “The Season When Flowers Bloom,” Francesca Jordan’s winning translation of an excerpt from Taiwanese writer Yang Shuangzi’s novella, is selected by the judging panel consisting of Susan Wan Dolling, Mike Fu, and Darryl Sterk. Jordan will be offered a place in the upcoming “Bristol Translates” Literary Translation Summer School in July. Honorable mentions from the competition include entries by Stella Jiayue Zhu, Will Jones, and Lucy Craig-McQuaide. READ MORE…

An Interview With Tomasz Zaród, Head of the Polish Publishing House Książkowe Klimaty

May 17, 2021  |  in Interviews  |  by Julia Sherwood

Another feature of the books we publish is that they break stereotypes and show the relations between communities.

Książkowe Klimaty, a publishing house based in the Polish city of Wrocław, has been gradually carving out its distinct and variegated literary footprint since its founding in 2013. In accordance to their mission statement, which states a passion for presenting what is “close and unknown at the same time”, Książkowe Klimaty has continually serviced Polish readers with a rich variety of contemporary European texts, publishing translations from the Czech, Romanian, Turkish, Hungarian, and more. In the following interview, Editor-at-Large for Slovakia, Julia Sherwood, speaks with Książkowe Klimaty’s founder, Tomasz Zaród, on the house’s incidental founding, the award-winning titles available, and the house’s southward expansion. 

Julia Sherwood (JS): Poland has no shortage of publishing houses. Many of them also publish translated literature but, as far as I know, yours is the only one that focuses solely, or almost solely, on translations. How and when did it all start?

Tomasz Zaród (TZ): You are right, most of the books published by Książkowe Klimaty are translations, although we have also published some by Polish writers. It all started by chance. A friend of mine with a small publishing house had acquired the rights to a few works, including a novel by the Slovak writer Pavol Rankov, Stalo sa prvého septembra (alebo inokedy), which we translated as Zdarzyło się pierwszego września (albo kiedy indziej, and which can also be found in English translation as It Happened on the First of September (or some other time). I had an online bookstore with well-developed logistics, so we decided to join forces. This was in 2013, and when my friend left after a year, I was left with a publishing house. I had no previous experience in this field but had learned a great deal during that first year. And I was very lucky to have a great team. There were three of us at the start: one in charge of editorial matters (finding translators, editors, copyeditors, etc.), another dealing with promotion, while I tried to tie everything together in Excel. None of us were very experienced, but maybe that is why we dared to do things people with more experience might not have done! Right now, the permanent staff consists of two people responsible for commissioning, promotion, and sales, while I handle the business side of things. All the other work (editing, copyediting, typesetting, and graphic design) is done by freelancers. Looking back on the eight years since we began, I believe that the gamble has paid off: we have published more than ninety books translated from well over a dozen languages.

JS: The literal translation of the name of your publishing house—Książkowe klimaty—is “Book or literary atmospheres”, which doesn’t sound so good in English, but your mission becomes clear from the explanation on your website, which says that every series you publish aims to convey the unique atmosphere of a country or a region. What are the criteria you use to select the countries and books that you publish?

TZ: Most of the books we have published come from Central and Southern Europe, in the widest sense. These are countries not that far from Poland—places where we spend our holidays or that we visit at weekends, but at the same time, we know nothing about the great literature written there. We started with Slovak and Czech, then moved on to Greek and then Romanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, and then further south. We try to select books that are critically acclaimed and have won some awards. Ten of the books we have published have received the European Union Prize for Literature, many are recipients of prestigious local awards, such as the Magnesia Litera in the Czech Republic and Anasoft Litera in Slovakia. Another feature of the books we publish is that they break stereotypes and show the relations between communities. For example, It Happened on the First of September features the multi-ethnic mix in southern Slovakia, while Księga szeptów (Cartea soaptelor / The Book of Whispers) by Varujan Vosganian deals with the history of Armenians in Romania. Imaret. W cieniu zegara (Imaret: Three Gods, One City) by Iannis Kalpouzos deals with Greek-Turkish relations, while Bulgarian-Turkish relations are the subject of Requiem dla nikogo (Requiem for Nobody) by Zlatko Enev, translated by Hanna Karpinska. We also rely on suggestions from our translators. READ MORE…