News

Do You Like Adventures?

December 18, 2024  |  in News  |  by Lee Yew Leong

“The space between two languages is not between mirrors, but curves along the great wall of error, a refined form of adventure.” —Rosmarie Waldrop

Is it that time of the year already?

Yes! Today marks the start of our annual two-week closure (during which our entire 100-strong virtual but very human team enters hibernation—so we hope you understand if we only respond to your emails in the New Year).  But, before we go off the grid completely, let’s take a look at the rear-view. In 2024, we gave you:

Ahead of us, we have plans to:

  • Revamp our website, which has been overdue for an update for some time now;
  • Launch a Substack—with even more thoughtful coverage and greater depth!; and
  • Bring back our international translation contest for emerging translators.

But to do any of the above, we have to be sustainable first—an uphill task given that Asymptote is incorporated outside of the US and Europe, where most of English-language literary arts funding lies. Sadly, despite a full 14 years of hard work behind the scenes and a London Book Fair award under our belt, the revenue that currently comes in each year is still not yet enough to support one full-time member’s involvement.

Which is why we just have to ask during this season of giving: Can you spare us five bucks a month?

Because that’s all it takes to sustain this platform—that we use to advocate for a more inclusive world literature and to amplify underrepresented voices like H.W. Burg’s—if enough of you stand with us. Tempted to sign on as a patron or even a masthead member? We’d be overjoyed and shower you with perks—including newly unveiled ones like literary care packages I’ll personally assemble. We just want to make sure that those of you who value our work have the chance to support it before it’s too late. So, if you can afford it, please take a few minutes to sign up via the link below:

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

December 13, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Ibrahim Fawzy, José García Escobar, and Thuy Dinh

The latest from Vietnam, Central America, and the ALTA conference!

This week, read about the annual conference of the American Literary Translators Association, the new pathways Vietnamese writers and translators are helping to pave in the Anglosphere, as well as the new accolades, conversations, and impact of Central American literatures.

Thuy Dinh, Editor-at-Large, reporting for Vietnam and the Vietnamese Diaspora

Han Kang’s recent Nobel win has spurred lively discussions among writers in Vietnam and the diasporic community on how to sustain and promote Vietnamese literature beyond its national borders. Thiên Kim, co-founder of UK-based Major Books, believes it’s not a quality issue but the scarcity of works being translated into English that has prevented Asian literature from being more widely appreciated.

To rectify the situation, Major Books has teamed up with talented translators Nguyễn Bình, Đinh Ngọc Mai, and Khải Nguyễn, among others, to present a “well-rounded portrait of Vietnam while preserv[ing] the integrity and … originality of each [translated] work.” Titles to be published in 2025-2026 range from a new translation of a beloved national epic (Nguyễn Du’s The Tale of Kiều), a broad satire on sexual mores during the French colonial era (Vũ Trọng Phụng’s Making a Whore), a gritty exploration of contemporary LGBQT culture (Vũ Đình Giang’s Parallel), to a biting social critique via the lens of folklore and existentialism (The Young Die Old by Nguyễn Bình Phương). READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

December 6, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Andriana Hamas, and Xiao Yue Shan

The latest in literary news from Southeast Asia, Bulgaria, and Chile!

In this week of world literature, our editors cover the influence of censorship and propaganda on literature, and look back on Southeast Asian literature released this year.

Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Southeast Asia

What a year in Southeast Asian literature! The Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand took center stage in Penguin Random House Southeast Asia (SEA)’s catalogues, with a range of texts published throughout the year. First off in March was Bleeding Sun by playwright-novelist Rogelio R. Sicat, translated by one of Sicat’s children, the translator and editor Ma. Aurora L. Sicat, from the original Dugo sa Bukang-Liwayway, which was serialised beginning 1965. Sicat, who came of age in the aftermath of the American Occupation, wrote novels which further revealed his belief in land reform and love for Tagalog as a literary language, veering away from his contemporaries who were influenced by Euro-American conventions.

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

November 22, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Christina Chatzitheodorou, MARGENTO, and René Esaú Sánchez

The latest from Greece, Spain, Romania, and Mexico!

This week’s literary round-up include groundbreaking publications of Romanian literature, what to look forward to in the upcoming annual Guadalajara International Book Fair, and the passing of a Greek lyrical poet. Read on to find out more.

MARGENTO, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Spain and Romania

It’s the age of rediscoveries and revisitings in contemporary Romanian literature, both at home and abroad. In his singular indefatigable and all-inclusive manner, past Asymptote contributor Felix Nicolau has launched the first volume of the monumental anthology Grandes escritores rumanos (Great Romanian Writers), previously presented on our blog. The event took place on November 15 in Madrid at the Romanian Cultural Institute, where Nicolau presented the collection together with co-editor Alba Diz Villanueva.

While introducing Romanian classics to Spanish-speaking audiences—and thus marking a huge milestone in Romanian literature in translation, the impressive release has received accolades regarding its unique approach and framework amidst the entire Spanish-speaking literary world, specifically regarding its multifaceted richness fusing translation, literary commentary, didactic utility, and cross-cultural interpollination.

Felix Nicolau has also been involved in what is perhaps this year’s most sensational rediscovery in Romanian literature: De dor de sufletul lui Andersen (On Missing Andersen’s Spirit), a collection of fairy tales by Nichita Stănescu, published by Rentrop & Straton. Nicolau authored the preface to the text, and recently contributed an astute review of the same book to the literary magazine Astra. Famously known for his neo-modernist poetry of intriguing sophisticated imagery and memorable, abstractly paradoxical formulations that both stylistically revolutionized Romanian letters in the 1970s and implicitly opposed Communist social realism, Nichita Stănescu has been rediscovered in a staggeringly surprising capacity. These one-of-a-kind fairy tales verge on potentially best-selling children’s literature without relinquishing the radically imaginative innovativeness and the hypnotizing oracular diction of his poetry, with Nicolau placing them at the crossroads of Perrault, Saint-Exupéry, and Terry Pratchett. Additionally, argues Nicolau, there is so much more to these tales, as they are informed by avant-garde poetics and retain a cultural relevance within the digital age. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

November 15, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Jiaoyang Li, José García Escobar, and Sofija Popovska

The latest in literary news from Central America, China, and North Macedonia!

This week, our editors-at-large take us around the world for updates on award-winning literature from Nicaragua and Guatemala; the blend of art and letters in recent events centering Chinese literature in translation; and a dedication to one of the most influential literary figures in Macedonia, the late Olivera Nikolova. 

José García Escobar, Editor-at-Large, Reporting for Central America

Last month, Mexico’s FIL (Guadalajara International Book Fair) announced that the Guatemalan editor Raúl Figueroa Sarti will receive the inaugural Federico García Lorca Prize. The Premio Federico García Lorca a la Libertad de Expresión y Publicación is awarded to people or organizations that have promoted and protected freedom of speech across Latin America and Spain. Raúl Figueroa Sarti is the founder and director of F&G Editores, one of Guatemala’s and Central America’s most renowned publishing houses, and in 2021, he also won APP’s Freedom to Publish Award.

READ MORE…

Fall 2024: Highlights from the Team

November 13, 2024  |  in News  |  by Georgina Fooks, Joseph McAlhany, Julie Shi, Mary Hillis, Michelle Chan Schmidt, Sauvryn Linn, and Thuy Dinh

Looking to dip your toe in the new Fall edition but don’t know where to start? Check out these recommendations from our team!

The Fall Asymptote was a particularly special issue not least because of the focus on the ‘outsider’; many pieces resonated with the topic of alienation. In turn, the featured writers and translators—including many Asymptote colleagues—responded with sensitivity and care to questions of inclusion, liminality, and bordering. The most vital piece in the issue for me was colleague and editor-at-large for Palestine Carol Khoury’s translation of Bothayna Al-Essa’s The Gazan I Relate to. The translator’s note makes clear the stakes of translating even the title, and throughout the piece questions the limits of gestures of solidarity, especially when it is only the randomness of fate that means we are born in different nations, bounded by different borders, on one side, or the other. Al-Essa insists on the vitality of empathy but also the limits of solidarity; it is a piece that I am proud to see in the latest issue and I hope it spurs others to remember, reflect, and act.

He Wun-Jin’s short story “Guide Us, Chicken Booty!” (tr. Catherine Xinxin Yu) was a favourite, in its thoughtful exploration of grief for a trans sibling and the best way to remember them. As the title indicates, Yu translates with humour, but also with nuance, crafting a sensitive and moving text throughout.

Poet Ennio Moltedo (tr. Marguerite Feitlowitz) reflecting on the legacy of Chile’s neoliberal democracy in New Things was particularly potent, with a sharp critique of the limits of memory culture that feels even more potent since the failed attempt to reform the country’s  dictatorship-era constitution. Feitlowitz’s translator’s note demonstrates the thoughtfulness that is palpable throughout the translation.

It is always a joy to read Alton Melvar M Dapanas’s translations of Stefani J Alvarez (The Autobiography of the Other Lady Gaga is a favourite of mine from the archive) and Dear Sol continues with the question of life writing, reflecting on migration and loved ones left behind. The multilingual touches of Filipino and German paint an evocative picture.

From the Outsiders Special Feature‚ which seems to have set the tone for the issue more broadly‚ Odette Casamayor-Cisneros’s essay Home of the Maroon Women was a powerful read. Translated with skill and precision by Anna Kushner, the photos within the essay created a sense of history, of listening to and witnessing the Black women who have gone before. The voices of her family are braided with those of vital Black feminists: Audre Lorde; Maryse Condé’s grandmother,Victoire Élodie Quidal; Angelamaria Dávila; Victoria Santa Cruz. Casamayor-Cisneros reflects movingly on the journeys—both internal and external—that led her to the present moment, to the decision to stop running. Throughout, embodiment is key: “When Black women commit to fully living within and for our bodies, we become ourselves. We render our humanity too eloquent to be stifled, as we find the inner peace freeing from the external expectations that define us solely by our actions and roles for others.”

—Georgina Fooks, Director of Outreach

READ MORE…

November 2024: Upcoming Opportunities in Translation

November 10, 2024  |  in News  |  by Kathryn Raver

Mentorships, grants, and more—check out this month's latest translation opportunities!

EDUCATION

QUEENS COLLEGE MFA PROGRAM IN CREATIVE WRITING AND LITERARY TRANSLATIONCUNY

The Queens College MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation invites you to a Virtual Open House on November 20. 

Located in the most culturally and linguistically diverse county in the nation, our sponsor, the Queens College MFA program, attracts students dedicated to crossing boundaries in genre, craft, and language. Classes are small, mostly in the evening, and students work closely with faculty mentors. Gain a liberal arts experience with affordable public university tuition in an urban environment with a verdant 80-acre campus.

The program offers tracks in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and literary translation–and students are encouraged to experiment with multiple genres. See how far you can take your writing. Register for the open house here. 

 

ALTA EMERGING TRANSLATOR MENTORSHIPS

The American Literary Translators Association’s annual mentorship program is still open to applicants, but the window is closing soon!

Founded in 2015, ALTA’s mentorship program serves to connect emerging and established translators through collaboration on a translation project of the mentee’s choosing. This undertaking will culminate in a reading of the work at ALTA’s annual fall conference in 2025. In its nearly ten years of existence, the program has supported over 70 translators working from 25 different languages.

The program is available to translators who have published no more than one full-length literary translation. Applicants should submit their CV, a 1000-word project proposal, and an 8-10 page sample translation to be considered. The application window closes on November 30th. Find more information here.

SUBMISSIONS

TWO LINES PRESS – CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Two Lines Press’s Calico series is calling for submissions! The series’ upcoming edition will feature poetry written and translated by Afghan women. Poets living in Afghanistan and the diaspora are invited to submit 8 to 15 pages of previously untranslated poetry, translated from any language, to be considered. They especially hope to receive works “that will inspire, challenge, and expand our conception of poetry from that region of the world.”

The deadline for submissions November 18th. You can find more information here.

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

November 8, 2024  |  in News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Kathryn Raver and Zohra Salih

The latest literary news from France and India!

This week, our editors report on literary prizes around the world — from an intergenerational family saga to a new approach to the trope of the madwoman in literature, get ready to add some exciting titles to your to-be-read list!

Kathryn Raver, Assistant Managing Editor, reporting from France

A few weeks back, I wrote an update for Asymptote about France’s Prix Goncourt shortlist, which at the time had just been announced—and this week, the results are in! On Monday, from among a shortlist of seven other authors, the Academie Goncourt awarded the prize to Algerian writer Kamel Daoud’s Houris. Daoud’s novel follows a young Algerian woman as she navigates her country in the aftermath of the civil war of the 1990s and is Daoud’s second Goncourt success—the first being his novel Meursault, contre-enquête, which won the Prix du premier roman in 2015. I’m on a mission to read all of this year’s shortlist and only just started Houris– but from what I’ve read so far, it certainly deserves the accolades it’s received.

The Prix Femina—another of France’s coveted literary prizes—also named its winner this week. Franco-Venezuelan author Miguel Bonnefoy took home the award for his most recent novel, Le rêve du Jaguar—an intergenerational story that explores the bonds of family amid the turbulent political climate of 20th century Venezuela. The novel was also awarded the Prix du Roman de l’Academie Française last month. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

November 1, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Andriana Hamas and Xiao Yue Shan

The latest from Peru and Bulgaria!

This week, an exhibition honouring an iconic poet resonates with contemporary social movements in Peru, and a play causes quite the stir in Bulgaria. Read on to find out more!

Xiao Yue Shan, reporting from Peru

At the Casa de la Literatura Peruana (House of Peruvian Literature), space has appropriately been made for a poet who never wavered in his conviction of literature’s physical presence. Alejandro Romualdo (1926-2008) was a key figure of the Generación del 50—a Peruvian literary movement dedicated to a social ars poetica that would address daily realities and further political agency, formed amidst the dictatorship of Manuel Odría. Though few beyond the country will have knowledge of the power and continual influence of Romualdo’s works (which are regrettably yet to appear in English), this new exhibition, ‘Alejandro Romualdo: En la extensión de la palabra (in the extension of the word)’, firmly establishes the poet’s legacy, multiplicity, and role in shaping the Peruvian poetic landscape. Moving through not only his written works but his prolific activities as a graphic designer, humorist, cartoonist, and revolutionary, the brief but wide-ranging collection reveals a writer deeply embedded in the consciousness of his country.

‘The extension of the word’ is the title of Romualdo’s 1974 collection, which saw its writer interrogating poetry’s materialism for what more it could give to a world that demands a continuously evolving application of language. Working with concrete poetics, polyphonic constructions, and techniques of montage, Romualdo equalised the blank space of the page to the air—that which is both a separation and a link. In this era, he conceptualised the poetic form as a space where disparate or even antithetical ideas are held in a closed frame, thereby demonstrating the mind’s capacity to travel back and forth between them, uniting them as a single conceivable reality. Distance is relative in these poems, something easily breached by a long vowel sound or a dangling, dismembered line. READ MORE…

Blog Editors’ Highlights: Fall 2024

October 28, 2024  |  in News  |  by Bella Creel and Xiao Yue Shan

Exploring the breadth and depth of our latest issue!

Dive into our latest issue through the eyes of our blog editors, who take a close reading of the pieces that most moved them. In confronting shame and invisibilization, tracking the recurrent tides of grief, rending the mysterious forces of music and literature into poetry, and reimagining the painful, final moments of a migrant’s journey—these translations offer us avenues into wonderment, connection, and understanding.

When I was young, I developed a compulsion to count my fingers, pinky to thumb and back again, to fifteen, whenever I found myself in a situation I didn’t understand, or when I felt ashamed or guilty. The repetitive, reliable action was my way of putting a cork in my anxiety, to stem the building pressure that threatened to well up, and reorient myself in the world around me. No one else I knew had the same need—at least, not that I could see—and realizing this put a box around the world, shut by lock and key, depriving me of any access. In Ornela Vorpsi’s Offworld, in translation from the Italian by Antonella Lettieri, the main character Tamar feels similarly severed from the rest of the world. Where I experienced it like a dam ready to burst, Tamar feels a “fissure,” as if from an earthquake, splitting her brain and setting her apart from other people; where I had a box, Tamar views the world through a window, from which she observes the comings and goings of her neighbors and their visitors. Tamar’s fissure is fueled by an inexplicable wanting, a sense of shame and lust that she cannot put into words: “I could not tell my mother nor anyone else what was happening because I did not know either. I was brutally suspended in fear, under its control.”

From her window, Tamar watches the many sons of her neighbor Maria, entranced by their indulgence and languid masculinity, their bodies cast in light and smoke reminiscent of a Caravaggio. A Virgin Mary watches over the boys’ room, holding a baby Jesus—a reminder that God is always watching, and a source of the religious paranoia that haunts Tamar throughout her life. The religious undertones to her shame are in part what prevent her from recognizing what it is that she wants, even though she knows she lusts for something:

I too, Tamar, felt that I desired something uncatchable, even if I could not give it a name. It took many shapes, my desire, I only sensed that it was sly, that it deceived me, slipping like an eel from between my fingers, from between my thighs.

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

October 25, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Charlie Ng and Wambua Muindi

The latest in literary updates from Kenya and Hong Kong!

In this week of updates from around the world, our Editors-at-Large report on a monumental literary award and an insightful language-focused podcast. From the Nairobi International Book Fair in Kenya to Jennifer Feeley’s advice for emerging translators of Cantonese literature in Hong Kong, read on to learn more!

Wambua Muindi, Editor-at-Large, reporting for Kenya

This year’s Nairobi International Book Fair was held September 25–29, celebrating twenty-five years of bringing together the world’s literatures. On September 28, 2024, the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature 2024 winners were announced at the Westlands Banquet Center. Dedicated to authors writing in English and Kiswahili, Kenya’s official and national languages respectively, this year’s edition marked a comeback after a two-year hiatus due to funding challenges. An important distinction in the local book circuit sponsored by the Kenya Publishers Association, the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for literature has been celebrating Kenyan authors since 1972. This year, Ngumi Kibera’s The Gambler (2021), published by the Oxford University Press, took the adult category in English, and Tony Mochama’s A Jacket for Ahmed (2021) from Oxford University Press took the youth category. In the Kiswahili awards, Daniel Okello’s Kifunganjia (2021) published by Storymoja won the adult category while M.K. Taurus’ Swila Arejea na Hadithi Nyingine, published by Storymoja, took the children’s, and John Habwe’s Mshale wa Matumaini, published by Access Publishers, took the youth category. In addition, the association announced a list of twenty-five notable books and authors in the country over the last two and half decades. Congratulations to the winners and their publishers!

READ MORE…

Our Fall 2024 Edition Is Here!

October 24, 2024  |  in News  |  by Lee Yew Leong

Feat. Jon Fosse, Mikhail Shishkin, Natascha Wodin, Bothayna Al-Essa, and Nebojša Lujanović in our Special Feature themed on outsiders

You and I, self and the other—it is the oldest, simplest difference we know. At a time of flooding across the world, from India to the US, the writers of our Fall 2024 issue call attention to physical and social separation, to the rushing waters that pull us apart, rendering us #Outsiders to one another. In exploration of this theme, we proudly bring you new work from 32 countries, including drama from Norwegian Nobel Laureate Jon Fosse, an interview with exiled Russian author Mikhail Shishkin, a review of French icon Simone de Beauvoir’s latest English publication, nonfiction by Omani writer Hamoud Saud, a spotlight on Brazilian artist André Griffo, and, for our final Brave New World Literature entry, a moving essay by the recently announced US National Book Award nominee the Kuwaiti author Bothayna Al-Essa. One year on from October 7th, Al-Essa confronts the limits of literary activism as she reflects on her video calls with a Gazan colleague: “Did I expect a person besieged in an open prison since 2006 to rejoice at the sight of a shelf of books?” In another highlight, German-Ukrainian writer Natascha Wodin’s narrator resuscitates her drowned mother, trying to fathom her across the gulf of time even as she pictures the Regnitz river washing her away. Meanwhile, Swiss poet Prisca Agustoni and Moroccan author Khalid Lyamlahy confront another kind of drowning—that of modern day migrants in search of a better life—in particular, the 269 lives lost to the sea around Lampedusa in a shipwreck, the news of which lights up Agustoni’s phone, and the death of a Gambian Lyamlahy never got to know: “I dream of a book that would contain all the words refused you, all the silences imposed on you. A book where the word ‘help’ is constantly repeated, in which the author would fade from each line, each fragment, to give you back the space denied you in life.”

blog2

Lyamlahy’s feat of empathetic imagination leads off this edition’s wildcard Special Feature, first announced on August 15th. By the time submissions closed one month later, anti-migrant rhetoric in the US had hit a new low with Trump repeating baseless claims of Haitians “eating cats and dogs” in his presidential debate. So, although we received more than one hundred manuscripts spotlighting every stripe of outsider, we decided to carve out space for the racial/national “other” so often denigrated in politics. From Cuban author Odette Casamayor-Cisnero drawing courage from her great-great-grandmother and taking a fiery stand against racism (“I’m done with running away”) to Croatian writer Nebojša Lujanović’s nuanced portrayal of a migrant who cannot bring himself to enunciate his full name for fear of outing himself to other members of his newly chosen community, the myriad voices showcased in this Feature are resounding proof of the struggle and humanity of those we as a society are so eager to condemn to the margins. All of this is illustrated by Spain-based guest artist Anastassia Tretiakova’s haunting photography.

As a magazine that does not receive ongoing institutional support because of our own outsider status—as elaborated in the Fall 2022 issue’s Editor’s Note—Asymptote counts on readers to sustain its mission more than most. If you think this “global literary miracle” (according to Dubravka Ugrešić) deserves to continue, please take a few minutes to sign up as a sustaining or masthead member today. (Interested in joining us behind the scenes instead? Our final recruitment drive of the year closes in four days!) Thank you for your readership and support. We can’t wait to see what 2025 brings!

READ THE ISSUE

SUPPORT OUR VITAL MISSION

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

October 18, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Alan Mendoza Sosa, Christina Chatzitheodorou, and Kathryn Raver

The latest literary news from France, Greece, and the United States!

In this week’s roundup of world literary news, our team members fill us in on France’s literary awards season and exciting festivals in Greece and the United States. From the race for the Prix Goncourt to feminist literature in Athens, read on to find out more!

Kathryn Raver, Assistant Managing Editor, reporting from France

As the leaves begin to shift their colors, France’s literary scene is shifting into awards season. Last week, Jean-Pierre Montal took home the Prix des Deux Magots for his novel La Face nord, the Prix Medicis announced their 2024 shortlist, and the contenders for the prestigious Prix Femina are to be revealed in just a few weeks. That’s only to name a few!

Perhaps the most esteemed French literary prize, however, is the Prix Goncourt, and the time for its conferral is fast approaching. Awarded annually in November, the Prix Goncourt is bestowed by the Académie Goncourt upon “the best and most imaginative prose work of the year.” They also give separate awards for poetry (conferred this year to Haitian poet Louis-Philippe Dalembert), biography, and a large variety of international works, among others.   READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

October 11, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Asymptote, MARGENTO, and Xiao Yue Shan

The latest in literary updates from Ireland, Hong Kong, and a special on the Nobel laureate!

A world of news in this week’s roundup! From Ireland, discover the ambitious and innovative work of Macha Press, a collective pursuing a literature that is “international and intergenerational”; from Hong Kong and China, the fifteenth edition of the renowned International Poetry Nights in Hong Kong highlights the topic of translation; and from the Asymptote team as a whole, catch up on Han Kang, this year’s Nobel laureate in Literature.

The Asymptote Team, Reporting from our Fortnightly Airmail

And the winner of the Nobel is . . . Han Kang! After Annie Ernaux, the latest female winner in 2022, Han Kang is the eighteenth woman—and the first from South Korea—to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel committee’s citation commends her “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”. Her works confront acutely difficult subjects with a rare fearlessness and sensitivity, whether it be the personal, as in the Booker International Prize-winning The Vegetarian—a feminist classic of modern Korean literature that offers a powerful rebuke to a world that too often silences women—or the historical in Human Acts, where she depicts the Gwangju student massacre of 1980. In an exclusive essay for our Winter 2016 issue, her longtime English translator Deborah Smith describes the impenetrable potency of her style in this book: “Whenever I translate her work, I find myself arrested by razor-sharp images which arise from the text without being directly described there . . . the images themselves are so powerfully evoked by the Korean that I sometimes find myself searching the original text in vain, convinced that they were in there somewhere, as vividly explicit as they are in my head.”

After checking out our coverage of her latest novel in English translation, Greek Lessons, dive into more Korean Literature in the two Special Features we organized in partnership with LTI Korea, available for free in our Spring 2018 and the Winter 2023 editions.

MARGENTO, Editor-at-Large, Reporting from Ireland

One of the most significant events in recent Irish letters was the establishment of Macha Press in August and the subsequent announcement regarding its first two book launches, the debut already scheduled for October 17. Macha Press is a collective endeavour recently founded by seven poets with wide-ranging practices and experience: Siobhan Campbell, Ruth Carr, Natasha Cuddington, Shannon Kuta Kelly, Kathleen McCracken, Alanna Offield, and Lorna Shaughnessy. As stated in their first newsletter; “all founders are currently based on the island of Ireland and share a vision for the press that is international and intergenerational.” According to Lorna Shaughnessy, one of the founders, a poet-translator (featured in Asymptote Spring 2020), and a personal friend of mine, the aim of the press has always been to produce two books of poetry a year, one by an established or historical poet whose work the editors feel merits recovery, and one by an emerging poet.

READ MORE…