Posts by Patty Nash

Weekly News Roundup, 13th February 2015

February 13, 2015  |  in News  |  by Patty Nash

This week's literary highlights from across the world

Happy Friday-the-thirteenth, everybody! Let’s hope the unlucky date doesn’t squash whatever romantic plans you may have for Valentine’s Day tomorrow….

First Scandinavian crime novels took the translation world by storm. Now it’s Brazil‘s turn. At the Globe and Mail, Chris Frey argues that Brazilian author Daniel Galera’s latest novel, Blood-Drenched Beard (translated by Alison Entrekin), is poised to launch a veritable torrent of popular Brazilian literature in English translation. And so that you may be on the pulse for years to come: announcing the Literary Hub, future center for all (English-language) things book-and-web-based. READ MORE…

Weekly News Roundup, 6 February 2015: Dear Diary, What Are You Comprised Of?

February 6, 2015  |  in News  |  by Patty Nash

This week's literary highlights from across the world

Happy Friday, translation friends and fiends! Do you keep a diary? Literary journaling is a genre of its own—arguably the juiciest way to find the real-life parallels in our favorite novels—and Russian behemoth Leo Tolstoy’s work is no exception, though his struggles to narrate the self are arguably more insightful than my teenaged angst. Maybe perennial Nobel-favorite and Japanese author Haruki Murakami might like my tween journals a bit more, as he’s penning an advice column (available in English translation!).

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Happy Birthday to Us!

January 15, 2015  |  in News  |  by Patty Nash

...Asymptote is a rather loquacious four-year-old. Let the festivities commence!

That’s right—your favorite online translation journal turns four this month and world-class writers, translators, and artists like Yoshitomo Nara, who especially made us the drawing above, will be helping us celebrate in a grand way! From now till January 29, we invite you to join us here on the blog as we showcase our proudest achievements and commemorate the most important projects in our four years of promoting world literature. Our brand-new Winter issue then goes live on January 30.

Naturally, you can celebrate our birthday virtually (ICYMI: one need only dig through our archives or explore our world map), but if you’ve got a hankering for a real-life Asymptote meetup, toast one of Entropy‘s 20 Best Journals of 2014 (the only world literature journal on the list!) alongside real-live Asymptote fans, contributors, and staff members at our New York event this Saturday, January 17. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door—it pays to think ahead.

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And if you’re feeling generous, give the gift of literature to yourself and the rest of the globe by donating to our all-important Indiegogo campaign. As of this moment, we’ve already collected $9,158 from 116 donors (thank you!), which means we have $15,842 left to fundraise before our campaign ends on January 29. Our Chinese branch has also pitched in with a fundraising campaign of their own, collecting ¥7035 (or $1,137) from 114 donors so far. If we hit our goal of $25,000, we will be able to continue operating beyond January 2015 and keep bringing you the best world literature has to offer.

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Weekly News Roundup, 9th January 2015 (!): Robot Russian, Twin Anna Kareninas

January 9, 2015  |  in News  |  by Patty Nash

This week's literary highlights from across the world

Happy 2015! This is the first roundup of 2015, but we’re already nine days in—have you broken your resolution yet? (I certainly haven’t been meditating every day). Even if your good intentions have been wavering now that we’re (over a) week in to the new year, do something good for yourself and for global literature by donating to Asymptote‘s Indiegogo campaign—every little bit counts and helps this blog and our big-brother journal publish the world’s best literature for free! READ MORE…

Weekly News Roundup, 19th December 2015: Noble/Nobel Buzz, University Navelgazing

December 19, 2014  |  in News  |  by Patty Nash

This week's literary highlights from across the world

To most Americans, the announcement of most recent literary Nobel laureate French author Patrick Modiano spurred a collective reaction: “who?” But (thanks to translation!), readers are warming up to his noteworthy oeuvre, and he’s gotten a significant boost since the prestigious win. And if you’re heading vers la France in the next few weeks—Christmas in Paris does sound romantic—be sure to check out this walkable guide to the City of LIghts à la Modiano.  READ MORE…

What We’re Reading in December

December 17, 2014  |  in Essays, Reviews  |  by Patty Nash and Tiffany Tsao

This December: family sagas, American classics, flash fiction, and meta-translation

Tiffany Tsao (Editor-at-large, Indonesia): Family sagas make up my month’s leisure reading so far. Jeffrey Eugenides’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning Middlesex and William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! have been on my to-read list for several years, and it was with a combination of sheepishness and triumph that I finally got round to cracking open their spines. One occupational hazard of being a literary academic is that you often lack the energy to graze beyond your particular fields of expertise. As a recent post-academic, it has been a great pleasure indeed to read more in the way of the American “classics”—and not just so I can finally stop embarrassing myself at dinner parties where I often disappoint fellow guests by not having read every work in the western canon, all the latest prize-winners, and everything listed on the latest “Top 100 great reads” list circulating the web.

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Weekly News Roundup, 12th December 2014: Rare! Exciting! Interviewed!

December 12, 2014  |  in News  |  by Patty Nash

This week's literary highlights from across the world

The mainstream American media is catching on—but doesn’t seem to grab a snag—on elusive and dramatic Italian novelist and cult phenomenon Elena Ferrante, who offered a rare interview to no lower brow than that of the New York Times this week. Check it out. And speaking of the buzz: take a gander at French Nobel laureate Patrick Mondiano’s Nobel speech—the gist is positive (literature is not, and will never be, in danger).  READ MORE…

Weekly News Roundup, 5th December 2014: Lorca Re-found

December 5, 2014  |  in News  |  by Patty Nash

This week's literary highlights from across the world

Anyone with a literary pulse noted (and mourned) the passing of former United States poet laureate Mark Strand (here’s a primer to some of Strand’s work, which “moved from common to sublime,” as well as an interview with the Paris Review). And the United Kingdom lost its queen of crime fiction, P. D. James. Finally, another poet passed, but was rediscovered: some of beloved Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca’s remains may have been uncovered, perhaps (but only perhaps) offering some answers to those still mystified by his tragic death-by-firing-squad.  READ MORE…

Weekly News Roundup, 28th November 2014: Happy Thanksgiving, Shakespeare in France

November 28, 2014  |  in News  |  by Patty Nash

This week's literary highlights from across the world

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving to our American readers—and to all non-Americans, happy Friday! Anglophones certainly have something to be thankful for: one of William Shakespeare’s treasured First Folios has been uncovered, practically untouched, in a small chapel in France, where it is reported to have lain for over two hundred years. And any literature lover or archivist from the University of Texas might be feeling extra-thankful this week, as the complete archive of Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez has been donated to the Harry Ransom Center in Austin. And at the Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Maloney opines that the proliferation of paperback books helped win World War II for the Americans. 

This week in book buzz: British/Indian author Arundhati Roy is following up her 1997-Booker Prizewinning God of Small Things, at long last, after a period dedicated to political activism. Here’s a profile. You can look forward to more than that, what with an upcoming translation of German counterculture icon Jörg Fauser’s novel, Raw Material. Irish phenomenon and inspiration to all pining novelists Eimear McBride has snagged another award for A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, which has already won the Goldsmiths and the Bailey’s Prizes, among others. The biggest international book prize, the IMPAC Dublin award, has announced its glorious longlist, and you might recognize a few titles (the list includes a title translated by Alex Zucker, blog contributor!). If you’re a skeptic to the prospect of awards in general, you might enjoy this look back at the National Book Awards, proving that even the most venerated intellectual institutions are subject to whim and fashion. 

French existentialists, philosophers, and novelists Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre didn’t end on the best of terms, but a forgotten letter from better times has reemerged. Same goes for American beats Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady: a letter from Cassady to Kerouac inspiring Jack’s iconic On the Road is set to be auctioned off. 

Every get a 2-AM book craving? (We know you do). In Taiwan, the 24-hour bookstore is a welcome respite for weary clubbers and bookworms alike.

Weekly News Roundup, 21st November 2014: National Translation Awards, Mapped-Out Languages

November 21, 2014  |  in News  |  by Patty Nash

This week's literary highlights from across the world

The interwebs’ hullabaloo around the recently-awarded (American) National Book Awards occupied much of the literary chitchat this week, but those of us in translation-conscious circles simply mourn that the Awards no longer carve a space for translation prizes. Also this past week: the American Literary Translation Association conference celebrated its largest award, the National Translation Award, given to Matlei Yankeivich and Asymptote-contributor Eugene Ostashevsky’s translation of Russian-language An Invitation for me to Think by Alexander Vvedensky. And the Korea Times announced its modern Korean literature in translation awards this week, too.

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Weekly News Roundup, 14th November 2014: Finish Your Books, Discover New Things

November 14, 2014  |  in News  |  by Patty Nash

This week's literary highlights from across the world

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re Internet-savvy (or at least Internet-literate, which is an appealing almost-rhyme—so you’re a poet, too). And those who use the Internet know what “clickbait” is, or think they do—but it may be time to rethink what that coinage actually means. (Speaking of regrettable words: Time Magazine has a poll asking readers what words/phrases they’d like to ban from the English language—and the word “feminist” is in the list. Seriously?!). While the Internet allows us to look back and cringe at photos, messages, and comments of yesteryear and today, prolific authors are rarely asked to do the same. Here are six authors (including Philip Roth, Asymptote friend Lydia Davis, and Junot Díaz) on some of their earliest work.

Famed French OULIPO member Georges Perec may no longer be living, but a recently discovered manuscript lets readers uncover more of his infuriatingly clever work: A Portrait of a Man was found inside a closet and hits the English-language market this week, thanks to a translation by none other than David Bellos. Yet more literature resurfaces: from famed American writer John Steinbeck, a story read by Orson Welles on radio never reached print—until now. And fans of tragic Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (including yours truly), rejoice: nineteen new poems of his have been uncovered. Now you might understand his tragedy! Finally, Holocaust survivor and Polish memoirist Mary Berg’s archival scrapbooks and journals have surfaced, shedding new light on a lifetime marked by trauma.

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October Issue Highlight: from “Against the Current,” by Tedi López Mills

November 13, 2014  |  in Essays, Translations  |  by Patty Nash

Another in-depth look at our most recent issue

When Asymptote’s October issue came out nearly a month ago, I (that is to say, your trusty blog editor Patty Nash, with my co-editor Eva Richter) promised that the favorites we had picked were merely the tip of the iceberg. That there were more where those came from, which is to say that they weren’t favorites at all, per se, because the word “favorite” implies absoluteness. And in an issue as large and diverse as ours, sticking to one or two final picks feels like an unnecessary burden: as blog editors, we do make the rules, after all. READ MORE…

Weekly News Roundup, 7th November 2014: Slangin’ Words, Who Knew?

November 7, 2014  |  in News  |  by Patty Nash

This week's literary highlights from across the world

Hey dudes, what’s happenin’? If you aren’t used to that tenor of slang employed here at the roundup, it’s because we haven’t included that level of vernacular in our lexicon just yet—here’s an enlightening piece on the phenomena of language-to-slang. The ethics of our slang—YOLO, DGAF, et al—have infiltrated our young writers, as evidenced in this short story featured in n+1: “YOLO Ethics.” And while some slang never catches on at all (“fetch,” anyone?), the same can’t be said for languages. How do you revive a language that is effectively dead? (It’s always a good idea to learn a new language, since we are at our most genius when we are in the process of language acquisition).  READ MORE…

Weekly News Roundup, 31st October 2014: Western Vampire Flicks, Big Kirkus Bucks

October 31, 2014  |  in News  |  by Patty Nash

This week's literary highlights from across the world

Happy Halloween to our All-Hallow’s-Eve-observing readers. Do you have a literary costume? You could dress up as tumultuous Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who celebrated his 100th birthday this week (from the grave). Or you could simply celebrate by reading R.L. Stine (of Goosebumps fame)’s recently live-tweeted short story, “What’s in my Sandwich?” (Good question). Or ponder the following question, as answered by Ayana Mathis and Francine Prose: what’s the most terrifying book you’ve ever read?  READ MORE…