Catch up with the latest from our very international staff!
Curious about what our team has been up to in 2019? Read about our staff’s many achievements in the new year, including publications, art exhibitions, and reviews.
Writers on Writers Editor Ah-reum Han received a distinguished mention in The Best American Short Stories 2018 for a story of hers originally published in StoryQuarterly.
Communications Manager Alexander Dickow’s latest book, Appetites, was reviewed on The Blunt Post by Linda Rijel.
In this week’s dispatches, literary highlights from Romania, Singapore, and the United States!
This week, join three Asymptote staff members as they report the latest in literary news from around the world. From the legacy of Romanian poet Emil Brumaru, to new releases of poetry, literary competitions, and the Iowa City Book Festival, there’s plenty to catch up and reflect on.
MARGENTO, Editor-at-Large for Romania and Moldova, reporting from Romania and Moldova
The most resounding recent piece of literary news in Romania is the passing of poet Emil Brumaru (born eighty years ago in Bessarabia, present-day Republic of Moldova), one of the greatest Romanian poets of the past fifty years. Superlative eulogies have inundated literary magazines and wide circulation newspapers alike, foregrounding both the vastness and the subtlety of the oeuvre, while also deploring the disappearance of a widely popular presence prolifically active in literary publications and even social media. Brumaru’s obsessively erotic verse, ranging from the profane and the pornographic to the angelic and the (still physically) mystical, comports a richness of nuances and a chameleonic craftsmanship that perhaps explain why such a huge voice remains for now largely unknown to the English-speaking world, except for a handful of poems translated in a couple of anthologies, graduate theses, or casual blogs.
While women are arguably the only—inextinguishable, nonetheless—subject of Brumaru’s poetry, women writers themselves are taking centre stage in Romanian letters as well. The first edition of the Sofia Nădejde literary awards—curated by poet and radio show host Elena Vlădăreanu—was in that respect a remarkable milestone. While doing justice to novels or collections by established writers such as Gabriela Adameșteanu and widely known young poets and critics like Teodora Coman, the judges also picked for the debut collection award a release significantly titled Kommos. A Hysterectomy Procession by Iuliana Lungu, an up-and-coming poet who has already won support and even accolades from living legends such as Angela Marinescu and Nora Iuga.
Not sure where to start with the brand new Winter 2019 issue of Asymptote? At 35 countries represented, this issue is our most diverse yet, and marks the eighth anniversary of Asymptote. Here, our Section Editors recommend some of their favourite pieces from their respective sections.
The writing of María Sánchez tracks close to the ground; she hunts experience. In “The Next Word,” compellingly translated by Bella Bosworth, we accompany Sánchez in her truck, as she drives around the Spanish countryside, working as a field veterinarian. There is a great slowness to her prose, born of hours of careful observation of people and things. The letters that composed this piece read like prayers, written to an unknown God, in praise of those small moments in which, as Sánchez writes, “life stands still and nothing happens.” There is a delicate empiricism at work here—an empathy with the world and its rhythms that Sánchez reads by looking at her, as if she were the geiger counter of existence. “Sometimes”, she writes, quoting Gabriella Ybarra, “imagining has been the only option I have had to try to understand.”
— Joshua Craze, Nonfiction Editor
From doublespeak in São Paulo and migrant caravans in El Salvador to a very British dystopia, catch up on the latest in world literature!
We’re back this week with dispatches from three countries where literature and politics have been interacting in unexpected ways: Brazil, El Salvador, and the UK. In response to the election of Jair Bolsonaro, Central American migration to the US, and the Brexit negotiations, museums and literary communities in these countries have been producing thoughtful exhibitions, fiction, and criticism that reflect on national identity and uncertain political futures.
Lara Norgaard, Editor-at-Large for Brazil, reporting from Brazil
It is hot and humid in Brazil, and long summer days provide opportunities for new authors and space for reflection about writing as political resistance. Early career authors have an opportunity to submit their work for the SESC Prize for Literature, which is open for submissions from January 9 through February 14, when unpublished authors can submit their manuscripts; the Record Publishing Group will release winning texts.
For Brazilian writers interested in producing their own literature beyond the traditional market, 2019 also offers new opportunities. Graphic artist Rodrigo Okuyama hosts a series of free workshops on zine-making at the Centro Cultural São Paulo. On Saturdays from January 12-26, participants can learn about format, illustration techniques, and how to marry narrative content with visual form. These workshops allow new voices to join a growing independent publishing scene in Brazil, where small collectives like PANTIM work at the intersection of literature and the visual arts. READ MORE…
Our blog editors provide a tasting menu of the literary feast that is Asymptote's Winter 2019 issue
Featuring work from twenty-three languages and a record-breaking thirty-five countries, there’s plenty to choose from in Asymptote’s Winter 2019 issue! Today, our three blog editors share their favorite pieces, from Icelandic, Slovak and Latvian poetry to Brazilian Portuguese social commentary and Bengali short stories.
From the Fiction section, the ever-intensifying “The Meat Market,” translated from the Bengali, takes one unexpected turn after another in a thrilling prose adventure. Set a week before Eid, what should be a celebratory, communal affair quickly turns sour in East Rajabazar. This is a city where transactions are tainted by the potential for danger, just as the meat sold is tainted by false advertising. Aminul Islam faces the full consequences of these circumstances that he fails to fully understand, culminating in a shocking conclusion carefully set up by Mashiul Alam’s artful prose, switching deftly between first- and third-person at crucial moments in the narrative.
If you are looking for exciting poetry freshly translated into English, don’t miss out on Steinn Steinarr’s “Time and Water.” Hailed as Iceland’s greatest modernist poet, Steinarr’s ethereal poetry combines Icelandic poetics with modernist free verse and imagism to create gems like:
And the sorrow I hid
nearly found your own,
like a fjord-blue sea.
In this sequence on a failed and flawed relationship, the distance between the speaker and the other is quite nearly but not quite ever bridged. Equally impressive are the complex rhythms of Monta Kroma’s extract from Lips. You. Lips. Me., a larger collection of experimental modernist poems. The Latvian poet plays on the use of refrains and repetition to create a circular, almost obsessive monologue. These poems are ones that I’ve been returning to, and ones you might love too! READ MORE…
There is happiness in sharing the struggles and successes of translation with a community of readers.
Enjoying our latest issue? You can be a part of the next one if you apply to our recruitment drive. (Just bear in mind that the application deadline is just two days away!) Some of you may wonder what drives us to do what we do, so today, in a special post, we are sharing a testimonial by Editor-at-large Barbara Halla, who tells us why she decided to take the leap and send us her application in September 2017.
A few months ago, I was discussing a pitch for an essay with one of the blog editors at Asymptote. The idea was to explore the way Albania—almost thirty years after the fall of Communism—is trying to preserve the memory of life under the dictatorial regime through interactive museums and privately-owned hipster cafés. The issue at hand is this: to understand how we might be able to translate memory into a physical space, and in doing so preserve the past. I had began listing all the resources I was going to use—historical books on the nature of memory, space, and the ever-present danger of glorifying dictatorships.
In fact, I had barely hit “Send” for my latest email on the topic when I received in my inbox our Fortnightly Airmail. Included in the “In Transit” section for this issue was a recommendation for Karl Schögel’s In Space We Read Time translated by Gerrit Jackson, a book on the materiality of space. I keep thinking now that even if I had done extensive research for weeks I might have never stumbled on this book that may as well have been tailor-made to help solve the issue I was wrestling with.
This is not the first time that working for Asymptote has serendipitously led me to sources and people who could help me better understand and serve in my role as an editor. Often, I will write about something for the blog and be contacted by another editor who is working on a similar topic, or knows about a book or article I might be interested in. Our community of editors and translators feels at times like a physical extension of my own mind.
All these advantages are the lucky by-product of my joining Asymptote back in October. What led me here was another experience all-together. The final impetus for my decision to apply was a visit in June 2017 to Daunt Books, a landmark bookstore in London known for its collection of titles from all over the world. At Daunt, despite said extensive collection, I could find no books about Albania or by Albanian writers. There is a good reason for that: beyond Kadare and some sporadic voices here and there, few Albanian writers are actually translated into English.
Working as an Editor-at-Large for Albania, I am slowly making my way through a list of voices I hope to feature in future issues, to bridge this gap. This has led me to venture into the world of literary translation myself. Through translation, I am re-discovering, after years of living through and studying in other languages, the beauty and singularity of my own native tongue. It is frightening to realize the struggles and limitations that underpin the work of a translator. I often find it very frustrating, how incredibly difficult it is to properly transmit into English the history that lends colour to our words and phrases. But there is happiness there, too, in sharing the struggles and successes of translation with a community of readers. It is their interest, their support, that ultimately makes the work worthwhile.
If you’re inspired to join our team after reading Barbara’s essay, check out some newly available openings (including Editor-at-Large) at our Recruitment page here. We look forward to receiving your application!
Your weekly literary news from around the world, all in one convenient package.
Awards, new translations, and a poet working to help the homeless—all this and more awaits in today’s dispatches! From Hong Kong, Hungary, and Indonesia, our editors-at-large have the latest updates.
Jacqueline Leung, Editor-at-Large for Hong Kong, reporting from Hong Kong
In the last few months of 2018, Hong Kong saw the deaths of several literary greats, but with January comes commemoration and activity. Martial arts novelist Louis Cha Leung-yung, or “Jin Yong,” passed away on October 30, 2018, just half a year after the publication of Legends of the Condor Heroes: A Hero Born, the English translation of one of his emblematic wuxia series set during the Song Dynasty. A Bond Undone, the second volume of the quartet, will be published at the end of this month in Gigi Chang’s translation. Its release is likely to gain even more traction in the aftermath of the writer’s passing.
Featuring Etel Adnan, Maggie Nelson, and Close Approximations winners, among new work from 35 countries!
We are proud to present “Body Memory,” our most diverse issue ever, featuring new work from a record-breaking 35 countries! Etel Adnan, Steinn Steinarr, and Argonauts author Maggie Nelson join us in celebrating our eighth anniversary and the six winners of our international translation contest picked by Edward Gauvin and Eugene Ostashevsky. Top honors go to two translators of underrepresented languages this year: Olivia Hellewell, who works with Slovenian fiction, and Daniel Owen, Indonesian poetry. Who else won a slice of USD3,000 in prizes? Find out here.
If you believe in our work, help us spread word of it in the physical realm with our Winter 2019 flyer (pictured above), or join us on Facebook and Twitter over the next two weeks especially as we push the glorious art and writing entrusted us out into the world. If you’re inclined to tweet, here’s a suggestion:
NEW ISSUE! Please RT @asymptotejrnl’s Winter 2019 “Body Memory” feat. Maggie Nelson, Etel Adnan, and Steinn Steinarr, among new work from 35 countries! Find out who took home $3,000 in prizes in the magazine’s annual translation contest, unveiled here: http://asymptotejournal.com/
jan-2019
On social media, many have been posting before and after photos in response to a ten-year challenge. At Asymptote, we take this ten-year-challenge to mean something else altogether: the challenge is see through what we’ve done for a full ten years, at least. It may beggar belief that we have done all that we’ve done in the service of world literature (events, educational guides, podcasts, blog posts, newsletter dispatches, and even a Book Club) on little to no institutional funding. Truth is, it has been every bit as hard as you suspect it to be behind the scenes, as we recounted in last year’s #30issues30days showcase. Although we are one of the most generous resources for out there for world lit, chronic ineligibility for nation-based grants means we’re stranded without support. High-visibility literary festivals apply for and receive sponsorship all the time, but who will support the very private act of literary discovery on a computer screen? As we enter our ninth year, the last leg of this challenge, we hope you’ll stand with us and sign up either as a sustaining member or a masthead member. We need your support more than ever. Become a part of our global movement—join the Asymptote family today!
At Asymptote, you don’t need to live in New York or London to work at a world-class literary publication.
Did you hear? We recently released our first recruitment drive of the year, advertising many newly available openings (from poetry editor to social media manager), offering readers a chance to get involved behind the scenes as Asymptote enters its ninth year of curating the best in world literature. Some of you who might be curious about this opportunity (bear in mind that the application deadline is less than 10 days away!) may wonder what it’s like to work for a dynamic literary journal such as ours, so today, in a weekend special, we are sharing a testimonial by Communications Manager Emma Page, who tells us why she chose to become a part of our global movement.
After completing my MA in Translation at Lancaster University in the UK this past October, I spent quite a bit of time figuring out what to do with myself. I considered looking for a position in publishing, but opportunities appeared few and far between. I eventually landed on freelance business translation, which I love, but the work didn’t quench my thirst for the arts. At a loss and living on the isolated Isle of Man, I started looking for remote opportunities at literary journals and websites.
I had been reading Asymptote since it was a brand-new venture and I was a high schooler just discovering the world of literary translation, but I had never considered working for them. As freelancers and artists in the social-media era, we are often told by our elders to be suspicious of “opportunities” to trade our work for “experience” or “exposure.” It’s a catch-22: If you can’t afford to work for free, you can’t gain the experience to qualify for the rare, extremely competitive paid gigs. I believe this is a real problem in the arts world, and that it directly contributes to the marginalization of non-wealthy voices. READ MORE…
This week, join our wonderful Asymptote staff members, Barbara, Rachael, and Nina, as they bring you literary updates from Albania, Spain, and the United States. From prestigious national literary awards to new and noteworthy titles and translations, there is plenty to discover in this week’s dispatches.
Barbara Halla, Editor-at-Large for Albania, reporting from Albania:
December was a productive month for Albanian publishers, a natural result of the conclusion of the Tirana Book Fair and the expected increase in book sales that marks the holiday period. On December 18, 2018, the Albanian Ministry of Culture conferred the National Award for Literature for the best books published in 2017. Henrik Spiro Gjoka won the “Best Novel” award for his work Sonatë për gruan e një tjetri (A Sonnet for Another Man’s Wife), which details the life of a psychiatrist who falls in love with one of his patients. Translator Aida Baro won the “Best Translated Novel” award for her rendition into Albanian of Primo Levi’s The Truce (translated into English by Stuart J. Woolf), the continuation of Levi’s autobiography, If This is a Man.
Expired copyrights, new literature, and the difficulties faced by translated literature feature in this week's updates.
As we welcome the New Year in, join our Editor-in-Chief, Yew Leong, and one of our Assistant Managing Editors, Janani, as they review the latest in world translation news. From the trials and tribulations faced by indigenous languages to new literary journals and non-mainstream literature, there’s plenty to catch up on!
Lee Yew Leong, Editor-in-Chief:
Though it was actually in 2016 that the UNESCO declared this year, 2019, to be the Year of Indigenous Languages, recent unhappy events have revealed how of the moment this designation has proven to be. A 7-year-old Guatemalan girl who was unable to communicate how sick she was died while in U.S. Border Patrol Custody—only one of several thousands of undocumented immigrants who speak an indigenous language like Zapotec, Mixtec, Triqui, Chatino, Mixe, Raramuri, Purepecha, or one of many Mayan languages, according to The Washington Post. Jair Bolsonaro, the new Brazilian president who has made insulting comparisons of indigenous communities living in protected lands to “animals in zoos,” wasted no time in undermining their rights within hours of taking office and tweeted ominously about “integrating” these citizens. On a brighter note, Canada will likely be more multilingual this year as the Trudeau administration looks set to enforce the Indigenous Languages Act before the Canadian election this year. The act will not only “recognize the use of Indigenous languages as a ‘fundamental right,’ but also standardize them,” thereby assisting their development across communities. Keen to explore literary works from some of these languages? With poems from indigenous languages ranging from Anishinaabemowin to Cree, Asymptote’s Fall 2016 Special Feature will be your perfect gateway to literature by First Nations writers.
Your weekly literary news from around the world.
This week, we remember a prolific Catalan novelist and celebrate the achievements—including prizes, publications and a Ph.D.—of Indigenous writers from Mexico, Colombia and Australia.
Tiffany Tsao, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Australia
In October, Australian literary magazine The Lifted Brow announced that their fortieth issue would be produced entirely by a First Nations collective of writers, artists, editors, academics, and activists. The cover and contributors for the issue, which was titled Blak Brow, were revealed in late November. The issue launched on Wednesday, December 12th, at the Footscray Community Arts Centre in Melbourne, and is also now available to be ordered.
The first ever Asymptote Book Club meet-up took place this week! Find out more, and read about news from El Salvador, in these dispatches.
In this week’s dispatches, we cover Salvadoran literary news and a special Asymptote event! We begin in London, where members of the Asymptote Book Club came together to chat about our fall book selections—and much more. From there, we delve into updates from El Salvador, including the death of a renowned poet and a women’s literary gathering.
Marina Sofia, Marketing Manager, reporting from the UK
One of the downsides of working for an international literary journal is that our volunteers and readers are scattered all over the world, so in-person gatherings are a rarity. It was therefore all the more special to see members of the Asymptote Book Club in London on November 29 at our first ever meet-up. Designed to be an informal drop-in event to celebrate our first anniversary, it included a quick tour of the current Rights for Women exhibition at the Senate House Library, followed by a discussion over drinks at the recently-opened Waterstones bookshop on Tottenham Court Road. Although we had to compete with a parallel (and noisy) event, our spirits were undampened as we discussed the surprisingly pulpy historical fiction of Ahmet Altan (October’s title) and the acrobatic linguistic challenges of translating Thai writer Prabda Yoon (September’s title). It was a great opportunity to see what readers thought we were getting right (diverse selection of genres, languages and countries; high literary quality) and what they would like to see more of (questions for online discussion; face-to-face events, perhaps including publishers). Thank you to all who ventured out on a windy and rainy evening and contributed to the lively debates!
See how the unstoppable Asymptote crew is finishing up 2018!
As the year draws to a close, Asymptote staff members have been as busy as ever. Here is a selection of what our colleagues have been up to, from reviews written, to panels spoken on, and new blogs too.
Communications Manager Alexander Dickow contributed a review, “Mystery and Surprise: Two Chinese Poets,” and translations of Swiss poet and photographer Gustave Roud, to the 88th edition of Plume.
Senior Editor (Chinese) Chenxin Jiang discussed the political power of literary translation as part of a conference at the Centre d’études de la traduction at Paris VII.
Romania & Moldova Editor-at-Large Chris Tanasescu aka MARGENTO jointly (along with Raluca Tanasescu) contributed a book chapter entitled “Translator networks of networks in digital space: The case of Asymptote Journal” to the hot-off-the-press Complexity Thinking in Translation Studies from Routledge (eds. Kobus Marais & Reine Meylaerts).
