Months in the making, we’re thrilled to unveil not one but two new Instagram presences: one for Asymptote Journal at @asymptotejrnl and another for our Book Club at @asymptotebookclub.
If you have enjoyed our award-winning curation, you’ll definitely dig the exclusive behind-the-scenes content, a new Untranslatable Words column, and much more. Hope to see you all there, and please spread the word!
Find out what our staff members have been up to when we’re not editing your favorite literary journal!
Editor-at-Large for Vietnam Thuy Dinh was recently a writer-in-residence at the Woodlawn Plantation/Pope-Leighey House in Alexandria, Virginia—a National Trust historic site featuring a 18th century Georgian Mansion and a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Her essay, “Schrödinger Catwalk, or A Tour in Opposites” on the meaning of hyphens, butler mirrors, Wright’s corridors, and her own refugee experience was published on September 11 here.
Assistant Director of the Educational Arm Kent Kosack has a new essays up in Pidgeonholes and Critical Read.
Chris Tanasescu aka MARGENTO, Editor-at-Large for Romania & Moldova, contributed (jointly with his international academic team) an article on “A-poetic Technology. #GraphPoem and the Social Function of Computational Performance” to the latest issue of the peer-reviewed journal Digital Humanities Benelux.
Editor-at-Large for Slovakia Julia Sherwood’s recent co-translation with Peter Sherwood of Czech writer Alena Mornštajnová’s Hana was released by Parthian Books on October 1. She recently spoke with Trafika Europe Radio on this latest publication.
Read more news from the staff:
Our Section Editors pick their favorite pieces from the Fall 2020 issue!
This year’s events have made us all a little rusty in the art of travel, so hopping across our fortieth issue’s thirty-two countries may feel equal parts thrilling and daunting. Luckily, our section editors (including our Dutch Literature Special Feature curator, International Booker Prize co-winner Michele Hutchison) are happy to lay out a road map. Read on for literary duos on life and love in the Netherlands, a Norwegian’s popular fury, a Mexican novelist’s elusive but lasting influence, and a German author’s and Iranian poet’s exquisite study of silence.
From Lee Yew Leong, Fiction and Nonfiction Editor:
Not quite as stunningly “out there” as The Haunting of Bly Manor’s episode five, Paweł Sołtys’s deeply moving “The Kiev Sea” (translated with great aplomb by Eliza Marciniak) nevertheless reminded me of it: we are in such close third-person mode that even the reading material that the protagonist uses to while away time seems to be directly absorbed as consciousness while operating as pivotal mise en abyme. Memories and regret flit through this consciousness, “maintain(ing) the other me within the present me,” even as everything is “already slipping towards an invisible edge.” In truth—as we follow the protagonist down the rabbit hole of nostalgia—the slippage began much earlier: “it seemed that since he’d turned forty, he could only discard things. Friends, women, memories even.” What is the sum of life then? How much can we hold on to? On this fateful October day of reckoning, this fictional protagonist is reminded, via fiction, as we all are perhaps, of how removed and frightfully impersonal existence finally is: “It really happened, all of it, but it’s as if it were a story, told not to me but to someone nearby, in the noise of a bar or during a fight, a proper one, when the sound of the blows drowns out the wailing.”
From Michele Hutchison, Guest Editor of Dutch Literature Special Feature:
Good fortune would have it that I was working on the selection of Asymptote’s Dutch special when my translation of The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld was awarded the International Booker Prize. Perfect timing for sharing these stunning new Dutch voices with you, coinciding with the spike in interest in our national literature. (I wrote ‘our’ without thinking: I’m a defected Brit, resident in Amsterdam.)
To be honest, Dutch literature has long had plenty to offer, and there have been other recent successes. Think of Gerbrand Bakker’s The Twin (translated by David Colmer) winning the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award ten years ago, and think of the great reception Gerard Reve’s classic The Evenings (translated by Sam Garrett) and Tonke Dragt’s The Letter for the King (translated by Laura Watkinson, recently a Netflix series) have had in English. We haven’t exactly been hiding our light under a bushel. Nevertheless, it was wonderful to put together this selection of Dutch talent to entice you to read further. READ MORE…
Feat. Andrés Neuman, Ariana Harwicz, and Rabindranath Tagore amid new work from 32 countries, including a Dutch Special Feature
We are proud to present the Fall 2020 issue of Asymptote, debuting new work from 32 countries:.
This cornucopia of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, drama, reviews, and more includes such treats as a sparkling new translation of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s century-old fiction, an exclusive interview with rising star Andrés Neuman, and Elisabeth S. Clark’s polyphonic book concertos.
Perfectly timed to coincide with Marieke Lucas Rijneveld and Michele Hutchison winning the 2020 International Booker Prize, our Dutch Literature Feature, guest curated by Hutchison, zooms in on the emerging and established voices of a small but mighty country. Here you can sample the English debuts of Curaçao-born Radna Fabias, whose first collection swept up an unprecedented number of major poetry prizes, and of Sinan Çankaya, whose best-selling memoir My Innumerable Identities recounts his efforts to combat racism in the Dutch police from the inside—only to be othered for his Turkish origins.
Elsewhere, Ali Lateef’s bittersweet “The Belle and Gazelle Statue” uses a public monument to illustrate the changing face of Tripoli after the 2011 Libyan Civil War. The unease of our current moment is captured in Ariana Harwicz’s “Longevity,” a cathartic tale about the effects of a pandemic-caused lockdown on a small rural community in France. Somewhere between nature writing and memoir stands Itō Hiromi’s essay on migratory plants and how the concept of “the Other” manifests in different cultures. The lure of the foreign propels both Vadim Muratkhanov’s dispatch from Tashkent’s labyrinthine Tezikova market and Hungarian essayist Noémi Kiss’s travel into the remote wonders of Azerbaijan.
Wherever we are, we find comfort in the global literary voices of our time, for even when they reveal harsh truths about our world, they give us hope, inspire mutual understanding and heal divisions. Please help us spread the word about Asymptote’s latest issue by downloading and distributing our Fall 2020 flyer/postcard, or by posting about it on Facebook or Twitter.
To promote this brand-new issue, we’re holding another giveaway contest: Share any of our #Fall2020 posts on social media to stand a chance of winning an Asymptote Book Club subscription. Every retweet or share will be counted, and there’s no limit to the number of entries you can enter. We’ll announce the lucky winner on Monday, November 2!
Get ready to spread word of the wonderful work of translators—and win an Asymptote Book Club subscription!
Dear reader,
Happy International Translation Day!
As David Mitchell put it, “Translators are jugglers, diplomats, nuance-ticklers, magistrates, word-nerds, self-testing lie detectors, and poets. Translators rock.” At Asymptote, every day is a good time to celebrate not only translators but also the editors and publishers who help move ideas across languages and cultural borders—but we suppose one official day will do for now.
Even so, you can make it a big day by joining us on Facebook and Twitter as we revisit our best articles about translation from our archive. From the why
“Translating beauty is an act of counterterror in this murderous world” (Nancy Kline)
and the how
“It takes courage to venture into that empty space” (Frederika Randall)
to the whom
“The best ones are accidents of migration and biography, who’ve come through the trauma of bilingualism” (Michael Hofmann)
we hope to use this occasion to advocate for the wonderful but often maligned art that is translation. To encourage as many of you as possible to join us on Twitter and Facebook, we’re giving away a three-month Asymptote Book Club subscription to one lucky winner who shares one of our #ITD2020 posts, sent out every hour today on social media.
Goethe once remarked that the work of translation “is and will always be one of the weightiest and worthiest undertakings in the general concerns of the world.” In our close to ten years, we’ve given away $13,500 in prizes to emerging translators, and advocated for a more inclusive world literature by seeking out and publishing the best work from 120 countries and 100 languages in our massive quarterly issues. But there’s more we can do—with your support.
If you would like to help us champion the art of translation, please consider making a one-time gift to Asymptote or becoming a sustaining member from as little as $5 USD/month. For a limited time only, new donors and subscribers will receive the above print-ready digital poster designed by Thai-Taiwanese artist Michael Laungjessadakun commissioned especially for Asymptote—a perfect gift for all your translator friends.
Thank you for being a vital member of our community!
Want to promote your latest release, translation contest or program or residency—and support Asymptote at the same time? Now you can!
How would you like to see your ad here at this very blog, on the pages of our quarterly issues, or in our newsletters—connecting with discerning audiences worldwide? Well, now you can! In our nine-plus years of curating the best in world literature, we have carved out a genuinely international readership that reaches well beyond pockets of literary translators and world literature enthusiasts. Browse through our 2020 media kit for advertisers to learn how you can leverage our impressive global reach to promote your new book releases, contests, writers festivals, workshops, residencies, graduate programs, open submission windows, journals, podcasts, and more. Your patronage will enable us to continue to advocate for under-represented voices and a more inclusive canon.
"A brilliant idea and a great way to get into translated fiction!"—Stav Sherez
Dear reader,
If you seek powerful, new reading material that can recharge your mind and spirit, consider yourself in good company. Current global events have upended almost all areas of public life, and have also caused us to reconsider many of our personal habits, like what we eat, how we work, and what we read.
In these anxious times, we’re reminded of the great Toni Morrison, who once said “All good art is political! There is none that isn’t. And the ones that try hard not to be political are political by saying, ‘We love the status quo.’” If all writing is political, then our reading routines surely indicate some political aspect of ourselves.
A membership to the Asymptote Book Club is a surefire way to broaden your literary horizons and increase your cross-cultural awareness—one unforgettable book at a time. Each month, we partner with top publishers like New Directions, Archipelago, and & Other Stories to deliver newly-released titles from around the world to readers just like you. From as little as USD15/a month, a subscription includes:
Are you ready to give yourself (or someone you love) the gift of literature? If so, be sure to sign up by 18 August—next Tuesday—to start your subscription this very month! We also offer a discount for group subscriptions; send all queries to bookclub@asymptotejournal.com.
Find out what the Asymptote staff have been up to this quarter!
Contributing Editor Adrian Nathan West recently reviewed Darius James’s Negrophobia: An Urban Parable for Review31. His translation of Rainald Goetz’s Rave was also released by Fitzcarraldo Editions last month.
Contributing Editor Ellen Elias-Bursać and past contributor Paula Gordon recently translated Olja Knežević’s Catherine the Great and the Small (out with Istros Books). To find out more, read Matt Janney’s review of the first novel from Montenegrin by a female writer to come out in English translation.
Assistant Director of the Educational Arm Kent Kosack has a new craft essay on Lauren Groff’s short story “Ghosts and Empties” up at Fiction Writers Review and a short story, “Kulshi Bekhir,” out at Hobart.
After presenting a hypermedia performance at DHSI 2020, MARGENTO, editor-at-large for Romania and Moldova, collaborated with Diana Inkpen, Vaibhav Kesarwani, and Prasadith Kirinde Gamaarachchige on an article in Digital Humanities Benelux Journal entitled “A poetic Technology. #GraphPoem and the Social Function of Computational Performance.”
Co-editor-at-large for Argentina Sarah Moses recently published her translation of Agustina Bazterrica’s Tender is the Flesh, distributed by Scribner in the U.S. and Canada.
Want to join our team? Apply to our recruitment drive by August 10!
From Misty poetry to texts both visual and conceptual, our latest issue is bright with offerings.
As testament both to our times and to Asymptote’s ongoing commitment to accentuating the richness and value of global literature, our Summer 2020 issue is replete with texts that vary in their gifts but are unified in their resonance. To help you navigate this selection, our section editors are here with their top picks.
From Lee Yew Leong, Fiction Editor and “Vignettes” Special Feature Editor:
Less diverse than a typical Asymptote lineup, I’m nevertheless proud of the five pieces I curated for the regular Fiction section: Each one wrestles with despair—even if it’s a different timber of dread than the one we’re currently in. In Italian author Christian Raimo’s “No More Cult of the Dead for Twentieth-Century Italy,” two men, haunted by dreams of dead bodies, set out to find and bury one. It’s an exhilarating tale of redemption set against the backdrop of a financial crisis—rendered in Brian Robert Moore’s tonally perfect translation. Don’t miss Czech novelist Daniela Hodrová’s Puppets (Living Pictures); cotranslators Elena Sokol and Véronique Firkusny took home a 2020 PEN Translates Award for their masterful work. In the hypnotic excerpt that we were lucky to present, the reader is whisked across time via a jump-rope. Featuring translations from the Arabic, Chinese, Macedonian, Portuguese, Russian, and Telugu, our more diverse wildcard Special Feature shines a spotlight on the humble vignette. From conventional shorts to metafictional haikus, there’s truly something for everyone. My favorite is perhaps Marianna Geide’s People and Other Beings. Via translator (and past contributor) Fiona Bell, Geide conjures up bizarre creatures—insects shaped like bird droppings, predators shaped like human ears, uselessly decorative bugs, mushroom people—and examines each of her specimens with the precision of a jeweler.
From Garrett Phelps, Poetry Editor:
“Dead Sea” by Yang Lian feels about as close as a piece of writing can get to its subject. Even more impressive is that he does this in two hundred and seventy words, and that the subject is a country gripped by a modern plague. It’s a vision of hell illustrated with “a dense tessellation of images, often hard for the translator to disentangle, which build and build to powerfully symphonic effect,” in the words of translator Brian Holton. Despite the obscurity, however, it’s oddly tangible and even familiar at times, probably because this same hell has become global.
dead fishies drift with the tide with no high hopes of escaping underwater
there is no underwater in your world
From Sam Carter, Criticism Editor:
In a review of Dmitri Prigov‘s Soviet Texts, Dan Shurley makes the Russian conceptualist writer’s work come alive by grounding an analysis of his work in broader trends both inside and outside the former Soviet Union. Prigov was, as Shurley explains, “a shape-shifter and a master of appropriating the lofty rhetoric of Soviet authority in whatever form it took,” and Shurley carefully guides us through the many offerings and intricacies of the collection that was published by Ugly Duckling Presse and translated by Simon Schuchat with Ainsley Morse.
Another collection, this time of work from multiple writers, is discussed in Ysabelle Cheung‘s review of That We May Live, which contains seven stories of Chinese speculative fiction that delve into alternate realities not entirely separate from our own. Cheung walks us through examinations of particular concerns that, taken together, allow this anthology to “reference global philosophical quandaries and anxieties.” READ MORE…
Discover Yang Lian, Frédéric Beigbeder, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, and a "Vignettes" Special Feature alongside new work from 31 countries
Asymptote’s Summer 2020 Edition, “This Strange Stillness,” confronts our troubled moment head-on, and yet displays the world’s creative wealth and resilience. Discover timely poetry on the pandemic by Misty School cofounder Yang Lian, a shout-out to George Floyd and #BlackLivesMatter in Gonçalo M. Tavares’s “Plague Diary,” and new translations of Pessoa’s eternal heteronym Alberto Caeiro in a knockout issue spanning 31 countries and 23 languages.
Everything seems to stop or slow down during a pandemic, even as the mind rushes ahead. In our exclusive interview, Frédéric Beigbeder talks candidly about the unexpected thrills of lockdown, his desire for immortality, and the xenophobia of English readers. Koko Hubara knows xenophobia all too well: she writes to her white-skinned daughter as a “Brown” Jewish woman in ethnically homogenous Finland trying to live in difference. This fear of standing out turns into an urgent question of survival in Tomáš Forró’s heart-thumping first-hand account from the frontlines of the War in Donbass, or in Balam Rodrigo’s heartbreaking evocations of the existential plight facing Central American migrants.
In the weird calm we may yearn for adventure, like acclaimed Cuban writer—and friend of Hemingway—Enrique Serpa’s narrator, who turns from fishing to smuggling in his novel Contraband, introduced to English readers for the first time. American artist Rachel Blau DuPlessis’s verbo-visual collage is adventurous also: grocery lists and metro tickets collide with piercing, crystalline aphorisms. Translator Fortunato Salazar, for his part, shatters and reconstructs Sophocles through distinctly modern eyes; there, we slip between ancient Greece and our own present. When, in truth, are we?
Whenever and wherever we are, we can all spread the news of Asymptote’s latest wonders on Facebook or Twitter, where we will be plugging every single article in a 48-hour tweetathon. If you’re out and about, brave reader, feel free to distribute this magnificent flyer of the issue in real life. We live in interesting times—and that surely makes for interesting reading. Enjoy, with many thanks from us at Asymptote!
Do you want to help amplify underrepresented voices in world literature? If so, consider coming aboard our international crew! We have openings in several exciting positions fitted to different skill sets and interests, from Assistant Blog Editor and Assistant Interviews Editor to Copy Editor and Graphic Designer. Apart from receiving training for a career in world literature, every single team member stands to make a world of difference in supporting our quarterly issues, daily blog, book club, and more. What’s more, with our tenth anniversary and new projects on the horizon, you’d be joining us at an incredibly exciting time!
Don’t wait! Check out our open positions and submit your application today!
From hypermedia performances to publications, Asymptote staff have been keeping busy—even under lockdown!
Communications Manager Alexander Dickow’s co-translation, with Sean T. Reynolds, of Gustave Roud’s “Air of Solitude” followed by “Requiem” is now out with Seagull Books.
Executive Assistant Austyn Wohlers, who has just been admitted into Notre Dame’s MFA program in Fiction, recently published a story, “Lila,” in Short Fiction.
Editor-at-large for Romania and Moldova Chris Tanasescu (aka MARGENTO) will be presenting in late May a Twitter-based (@GraphPoem) hypermedia performance preview of a computationally assembled Belgian poetry anthology he is editing in French and in English translation and in early June an interactive coding computational poetry performance at Digital Humanities Summer Institute 2020.
Contributing Editor Ellen Elias-Bursać’s translation of Robert Perišić’s novel No-Signal Area, out recently with Seven Stories Press, was reviewed by Ken Kalfus in The New York Times.
Editor-at-large for Guatemala José García recently published the final instalment of a four-parter about the migrant caravan at The Evergreen Review. Click here, here, here, and here for the full series.
Editor-at-large for Slovakia Julia Sherwood recently translated an essay by Czech journalist Apolena Rychlíková for the anthology Europa28: Writing by Women on the Future of Europe published by Comma Press in March 2020.
Our section editors guide you through the riches of our Spring 2020 issue!
Our Spring 2020 issue has arrived amidst a rising desire for unity and community. As we seek new sights from views made familiar by isolation, Asymptote is proud to have gathered some of the most vivid and singular works from literary talents from thirty countries, so that we may all benefit from the vitality of their distinct imaginings and realities. Here, our section editors share their favourites and guide you around this edition’s abundance of ideas and inventions.
From Lee Yew Leong, Fiction and Galician Poetry Feature Editor:
If you enjoyed watching Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant, you’ll probably love “Red Ivory” by Italian writer Matteo Meschiari from the new issue: like the film, it’s a survival tale set in the extreme cold (in the Siberian permafrost, to be specific), riveting in its depiction of the elements, narrated urgently with brilliant flashes of lyricism—including one electric moment of human contact collapsing 12,000 years. By the end, it’s also a möbius strip of a story posing big existential questions. (Don’t miss the edifying note by emerging translator Enrico Cioni, who did an amazing job rendering the story.) The omniscient narrator of Mirza Athar Baig‘s “Junkshop” transports us similarly through history—this time centering around the objects of a contemporary junkshop—infusing an everyday scene with wonder at just how much we don’t know. Many delights abound in the Galician Poetry Feature headlined by Manuel Rivas, Chus Pato, and Alba Cid (translated by Jacob Rogers, who also helped put together the Feature), but be sure to acquaint yourself with Luz Pozo Garza, one of Galicia’s literary greats, who passed away at age 97 less than a week after the release of the issue. In the selection that translator Kathleen March presented, she used cadences of the canticle and other musical forms to sing of an ecstatic yet bittersweet love for an evanescent world.
From Henry Ace Knight, Interviews Editor:
Kamila Hladíková’s conversation with Tibetan writer Tsering Woeser for the Spring issue’s interview section centers on the precariousness of Tibetan cultural memory and the poet’s resistance to its wholesale erasure. Citing Milan Kundera and Edward Said, Woeser suggests that the survival of marginalized collective identity is incumbent upon the insistence of individual eyewitness memory and testimony. “The history of a nation consists of the personal histories of its people,” she writes. “Descartes said, ‘I think, therefore I am’; but in Tibet, it should be, ‘I remember, therefore we are.’”
From Varun Nayar, Nonfiction Editor:
Following the footsteps of the great Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō, Durian Sukegawa writes about a journey he made in 2012, traversing a landscape reshaped by the earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster the year before. Alison Watts’s vivid translation of Sukegawa’s written account of this journey acquaints us with the personal and political stakes of living in post-Fukushima Japan. Part travelogue, part political meditation, Sukegawa’s writing pairs the beauty of the Japanese landscape with the ugliness of government negligence. At the heart of this piece is a desire to bear witness to the lives rendered invisible in the eyes of the mainstream media and the country’s disaster management apparatus. In its sober reflection of the human cost of events still fresh in Japan’s collective memory, Sukegawa’s piece also conjures an eerie relation to the current pandemic we’re living through. READ MORE…
Feat. Anton Chekhov, Tsering Woeser, Phan Nhiên Hạo, Chus Pato and Alba Cid in our Galician Feature amid new work from 30 countries
Explore the grand scheme of things in Asymptote’s Spring 2020 edition “A Primal Design,” featuring poetry by Zuzanna Ginczanka and Phan Nhiên Hạo, drama from the great Anton Chekhov, Joshua Craze’s review of António Lobo Antunes’ latest fiction, and Fiona Bell’s essay on the “diva mode” of translation. Our Special Feature this season showcases Galician poetry, headlined by Chus Pato. The vivid colors of guest artist Ishibashi Chiharu set the tone for exciting new work from 30 countries and 24 languages, while Ain Bailey’s sonic art provides a fitting soundtrack!
The oracle reveals the obscure plan that drives history, and Galicia, as evoked by its poets, shimmers with oracular resonance. “Language endures / Bodies do not,” declares Gonzalo Hermo, and indeed, these verses seem meant for stone inscriptions. Lara Dopazo Ruibal’s work takes a more visceral approach: “the fig tree grows inside me while the scorpion hunts the ants coming out of my eyes.” But everywhere these poets deal in the essential, the “gold in its original depths,” as Alba Cid writes.
The primeval and the primordial abound in highlights like Matteo Meschiari’s dive into prehistory in his powerful fiction, “Red Ivory,” or Auschwitz survivor Edith Bruck’s lyrics, as immediate as they are minimal. Tareq Imam considers the sublime terror of blindness in a Borges-inspired tale, “Through Sightless Eyes”: truly we are as the blind before destiny. History, like that of Tsering Woeser’s immemorial Buddhist Tibet, provides an illusion of clarity in our confusion. Amidst all that disorientation, writes Seo Jung Hak, “Even if I scribble a poem, the absurdity like a fly who doesn’t bother to fly away somewhere is sitting on a chair like an old joke.”
As we sit quarantined in Plato’s cave pondering our collective conundrum, consider casting shadows of your own when you share news of the issue on Facebook or Twitter; as thanks, here’s a free flyer of the issue to print and share with friends!
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