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Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

June 21, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Jiaoyang Li, Kathryn Raver, and Rubén López

The latest from Guatemala, Taiwan, China, and France!

This week, our editors take us through Central America, France, and China to explore the reaches of literature, from a transcendent event honouring the poems of Robert Bolaño, to the new World Book Capital in France, and works featuring vital new voices from the Chinese language. Read on to find out more!

Rubén López, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Central America

When I entered the room, it looked like a coven: a group of people gathered around an edition of Roberto Bolaño’s Complete Poetry. Each member of the group would take turns to step into the centre, leaf through the text for a moment, and then recite one of the Chilean author’s poems at random, like a poetic Russian roulette. As I took my seat, one of the young men was reading the final verses of “The Romantic Dogs”. I had arrived at the event without much certainty about what it would be like; the poster from Perjura Proyecto, a cultural and artistic dissemination space, only said “The Poetry Came” and had a sketch of Bolaño’s silhouette. And, of course, it also mentioned the date and time—May 23, 17:00.

When it was my turn, I decided I wanted to read “Godzilla in Mexico”, my favorite poem by Bolaño. I clumsily flipped through the text while trying to make conversation with the rest of the participants, but I couldn’t find it. I apologised to the group because I would break the Russian roulette and put the bullet in the centre; I searched for it on my phone. As I recited “Yo leía en la habitación de al lado cuando supe que íbamos a morir”, I was overcome with a deep tenderness. I saw us, in the midst of a vertiginous and infamous city—a group of no more than ten people gathered to read Bolaño’s poems to each other. I thought about the infinite forms of cultural resistance in which we exist, all self-managed, all on the margins, all filled with beauty. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

June 14, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Alan Mendoza Sosa, Alton Melvar M Dapanas, and Wambua Muindi

The latest literary news from Mexico, the Philippines, and

This week, our editors-at-large take us many places, from one book fair by the sea and one in the neighborhood that was once home to Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Read on for news about new bookstore openings, sonic poetry readings, and upcoming chapbook publications!

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

The International Book Fair of Coyoacán (FILCO) is taking place from June 7 to 16 in the historic Mexico City neighborhood internationally famous for having been the home of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. The event features stands from more than one hundred and fifty Mexican and international publishers, as well as two hundred events ranging from concerts and dance performances to book launches and roundtables. Among this year’s panelists are cultural luminaries such as the Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú, the descendants of Mexican historical figures like Emiliano Zapata, and the writer and Asymptote contributor Elena Poniatowska.

I visited the book fair on Saturday, June 9 for a presentation of the most recent book by Rocío Cerón, globally acclaimed experimental Mexican poet and recent Asymptote contributor. Simultáneo sucesivo is a collection that explores the sonic power of language. During her talk, Cerón emphasized how we live surrounded by sound but rarely reflect on its affective qualities. She demonstrated these qualities by reading from her book with her characteristic performance style: repeating words, modulating her volume, pitch and tone, and varying her speed. This performance style has the power to minimize language’s semantic qualities and foreground its sonic properties. She also played tracks of sound art that accompany the collection. These feature Cerón’s voice, but also include drone, ambient, and electronic sounds that induce a trance on listeners. Cerón’s performance, abstract poetry, and sound art liberate both language and sound from their utilitarian and practical everyday purposes, inviting listeners and readers to experience the texture, timbre, and materiality of language beyond its meaning.

Simultáneo sucesivo is the third installment of Cerón’s trilogy challenging the way in which we relate to language. The other two books in the series are Spectio (2019) and Divisible corpóreo (2022), which Cerón has presented in events around the world. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

June 7, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Bella Creel and Sofija Popovska

The latest in literary news from North Macedonia and Japan!

This week, Asymptote‘s team brings us up to date on the most recent releases and awards around the literary world! From a meditative poetry chapbook on the broad concept of motherhood from North Macedonia, to a Japanese thriller shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association’s Dagger Awards, read on to learn more!

Sofija Popovska, Editor-at-Large, Reporting from North Macedonia

Spring of 2024 marked an exciting new beginning in the Macedonian literary scene: in mid-April, Majkata na Svetot (Mother of the Universe), the debut poetry chapbook of Marija Svetozarevikj, was promoted in the bookshop cafe Bukva in Skopje. Concerned with themes both timely and timeless, the chapbook is centered around a “maternal approach to spirituality and life,” as Svetozarevikj explains, and celebrates the mother figure in a broader sense, which includes planet Earth. 

Svetozarevikj (b. 1998) is a graduate of the Fine Arts faculty at the University of Skopje. Her approach to writing is accordingly visual; Aleksandar Rusjakov, a fellow Macedonian poet, who admitted to having read Majkata na Svetot multiple times, describes its author as someone who “paints with words and sings in images”. This is one of the several dichotomies that Rusjakov believes are resolved within the chapbook: its pensive and loving lyricism reconciles “kindness and cruelty,” finds “peace amidst rebellion and rebellion within peace,” and remains “simple in its complexity”. Poems such as “Waterfalls (A Love Letter to Humanity)” affirm his exegesis. In a lyrical voice that is equally oracular and conciliatory, Svetozarevikj dives into the human tendency to inflict artificial boundaries upon existence as the ultimate cause for suffering. Trapped in a “dire cycle” of “denying facets of our selves”, and struggling to mold our lives into a linear “track” moving single-mindedly towards self-satisfaction, humans lose touch with being, where “there are no mistakes, but everything is part of a unity.” 

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

May 31, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Carol Khoury and René Esaú Sánchez

Updates from Mexico and Palestine solidarity around the literary world.

This week, our editors share news of solidarity, legacy, and cross-cultural connection. Around the world, the literary world is showing up to express support for Palestine, with the Palestine Festival of Literature continuing their crucial work of uplifting work that urges us towards compassion, the Palestinian struggle, and a condemnation of violence. In Mexico, some of the greatest writers in Latin-American history are celebrated for their efforts in connecting their nation to a greater, global heritage of letters. Read on to find out more!

Carol Khoury, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Palestine

In a historic demonstration of solidarity, the Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest), Writers Against the War on Gaza, and Amplify Palestine have come together to organize the event “Freedom to Write for Palestine,” held on May 7 at Judson Memorial Church in New York City. This significant gathering brought together writers who had withdrawn from PEN America’s World Voices Festival and the PEN America Literary Awards, condemning the organization’s failure to support Palestinian writers facing violence and displacement in Gaza. The unprecedented withdrawal of dozens of authors led to the cancellation of both PEN America events just weeks before their scheduled dates.

The program featured opening remarks by Nancy Kricorian and an introduction by Derecka Purnell, and included powerful readings and stories from Michelle Alexander, who read the work of Haya Abu Nasser, and Mohamed Arafat, who shared his family’s harrowing experiences. Evie Shockley read pieces by Fady Joudah, while Nicholas Glastonbury presented an insightful commentary on the Palestinian struggle. The event can be watched in full here. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

May 24, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Eva Wissting and Kathryn Raver

The latest literary news from Sweden and France!

This week, our editors take us to Sweden and France for updates on major literary initiatives and exciting literary festivals. From the fight against climate change to the fun of origami workshops, read on to find out more!

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

Last week, a climate initiative from the Swedish book industry—Bokbranschens klimatinitiativ—announced its new guidelines. The project started in 2021, with the goal of reducing the industry’s climate impact by 50% by 2030, and achieving net zero emissions by 2045. The initiative spans the entire supply chain from publishers to bookstores to streaming services, involving several of Sweden’s largest publishing companies and booksellers, as well as their industry associations.

Research from 2022 shows that most of the book industry’s emissions are caused by the production of physical books, along with their transportation; when it comes to streaming services, most of their emissions stem from the use of services, rather than during production. The guidelines presented last week include recommendations for renewable fuels such as green electricity for the transportation of books, but also optimized packing with minimal amount of air and recycled packaging material. The initiative also stated that it is essential for publishers to avoid overproducing physical books that never reach customers.

Apart from choosing sustainable paper for the printing of books, another important factor to consider is the weight of books: the lower the weight, the lower the carbon footprint. Even a small change of a few grams can make a difference, as it affects everything from raw materials to transportation, as well as the management of waste at the end of a book’s life cycle. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

May 17, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Andriana Hamas, and Bella Creel

The latest in world literature from the Philippines, Bulgaria, and the United States!

This week, our Editors-at-Large bring us around the world for updates on literary workshops, readings, and conferences! From a workshop dedicated to Kapampangan literature in the Philippines, to the thriving Mahala Bookstore in Bulgaria, to ALTA’s online Write the World panels, read on to learn more!

Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Editor-at-Large, Reporting from the Philippines

Tomorrow, May 18, marks the deadline of the call for workshop participants for Pamiyabe, the regional creative writing workshop for young writers who hail from the northern Philippine region of Central Luzon. Across Central Luzon and Metro Manila, the Kapampangan language (also alternatively named Pampangan, Pampango, and Pampagueno) is the native tongue to over 3.2 million Filipinos. 

Now in its 21st year, the Pamiyabe writing workshop is aimed at contributing towards the flourishing of Kapampangan literature and organised by The Angelite, the official student publication of Holy Angel University in Angeles City, Pampanga. This year’s theme is “Pamaglugug queng regalu ning milabasan, pamagkaul queng progreso ning kasalungsungan” (Nurturing the gift of the past, embracing the progress of the present).

READ MORE…

May 2024: Upcoming Opportunities in Translation

May 12, 2024  |  in News  |  by Kathryn Raver

From poetry readings to translation workshops—check out our compilation of some of this summer's latest opportunities in world literature.

SUBMISSIONS

THE VIEW FROM GAZA

The Massachusetts Review is calling for submissions for a special issue, The View From Gaza. Palestinian writers are encouraged to send their work—whether it be poetry, prose, essays, or art—for this special issue, which will commemorate those who have been lost in the genocide and celebrate the ongoing resistance and resilience in Gaza.

As Israel’s violence against Gaza continues, the Review “hope[s] to amplify the work of Palestinian writers that contributes to the theory and critique of Empire and settler colonialism.” Submissions in English, Arabic, and other languages are all eligible.

The deadline for submissions is June 15th. Submissions should be sent to themassreview@gmail.com.

EVENTS

2024 GRIFFIN POETRY PRIZE READINGS

On June 5th, 2024, the Griffin Poetry Prize invites you to join them for an evening of poetry and translation!

Awarded annually, the Griffin Poetry Prize is the world’s largest international prize for a book of poetry written (or translated into) English. At this celebratory event, this year’s shortlisted poets will read from their works at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto before this year’s winner is revealed. Readings will also be performed by the Lifetime Recognition Award recipient and the 2024 Canadian First Book Prize winner.

Tune in to the the Griffin Poetry Prize’s Youtube channel to watch a livestream of the readings on June 5th at 7pm ET.

GRANTS & FUNDING

GLOBAL AFRICA TRANSLATION FELLOWSHIP

The Africa Institute is welcoming applications for their fourth annual Global Africa Translation Fellowship!

This fellowship aims to celebrate works from the African continent, as well as from the African diaspora. Translators from across the Global South can submit their works-in-progress or potential projects to be considered for a grant of up to $5,000. Translations of previously untranslated poetry, prose, and critical theory works, as well as retranslations of older texts, are eligible. Submissions should be translated into English or Arabic, although translations into some other languages may also be considered.

The deadline for applications is June 1st, 2024. Find more information on eligibility and how to apply here.

RESIDENCIES & WORKSHOPS

BCLT ADVANCED TRANSLATION WORKSHOPS

Since 2021, the British Centre for Literary Translation has run annual advanced translation workshops to support the craft of literary translators and to bring together those with common language pairs. This year’s workshop will center on translators of Taiwanese literature.

Workshop participants will have the opportunity to work with other attendees to hone a sample translation for their chosen project. By the end of the program, participants will have a polished sample, as well as a pitch, that is ready to send off to potential publishers. Accepted applicants will need to choose a book from the Taiwan Literature Awards for Books longlists and obtain permission to translate the work.

The deadline for applications is June 2nd, 2024, while the event itself will run online during the 7th, 22nd, and 23rd of November. Read more here.

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Our mission here at Asymptote is to elevate the incredible work that translators do to to share literature from around the world. Our “Upcoming Opportunities” initiative aims to provide those translators with the opportunity to improve their craft and share the projects they’ve put their hearts into. Have an opportunity that you’d like us to share in this monthly column? Check out our rates here, then drop us a line.

We’re working hard on our upcoming 52nd issue. If you’ve enjoyed the work we do—from our social media channels and blog to our newsletters and, of course, our quarterly issues—please consider supporting us as we continue to celebrate world literature and those that bring it to life. Any and all donations to support us on our mission are greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Read more on the Asymptote blog:

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

May 10, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Charlie Ng, Ibrahim Fawzy, and Wambua Muindi

News from Hong Kong, Kenya, and the International Prize for Arab Fiction!

This week, we hear of a moving Palestinian work, written from Israeli prisons and recently awarded the prestigious International Prize for Arabic Fiction; newly translated short stories exploring the psychic and physical disturbances of pre- and post-handover Hong Kong; and events bringing literature to their communities in Kenya.

Ibrahim Fawzy, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Egypt

For the first time since its launch in 2007, the announcement of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) winning novel did not bring controversy, but rather warmed the hearts of those who read Palestinian prisoner Basim Khandaqji’s A Mask, the Color of the Sky (قناع بلون السماء).

Since the announcement on April 28, during the annual award ceremony in Abu Dhabi, UAE, I’ve pondered: has Khandaqji, who is serving three consecutive life sentences in an Israeli prison, realized the profound impact of his voice? Has he realized that the light he is seeking within the confines of his cell is now illuminating countless hearts? For two decades, Khandaqji has steadfastly honed his literary voice while incarcerated, as a form of resistance and a means to combat isolation. His only solace in the absence of nature’s beauty and freedom is the limitless expanse of his imagination. Khandaqji chose to walk on the fiery coals of writing, engaging in battles of resilience. Stubborn and preserving, he began his journey with literature by writing poetry (a natural start for a prisoner, as poetry is an act of freedom and a potent resistance to captivity), believing that the occupation can imprison his body, but not his free imagination or resistant literature.

Khandaqji’s family recounts the arduous journey he has undertaken, moving from one prison to another because of the arbitrary measures taken by the administration. Yet, despite these difficult and complicated circumstances, Khandaqji and his fellow prisoners managed to smuggle their literary works beyond the towering walls of their confinement, a testament to their unwavering commitment to their craft. The owner of his Lebanon-based publishing house, Dar al-Adab, shared in an interview that the novel was recorded on a pen-like device, and his brother, who accepted the prize on his behalf, was the one who painstakingly transcribed the text. Some might think that Khandaqji’s role as a writer ends only with the act of recording, but his family insists that they are keen on sending all the manuscripts to him so he can ensure that every word is in its proper place, that the events and characters haven’t been altered. READ MORE…

Spring 2024: Highlights from the Team

May 6, 2024  |  in News  |  by Alex Tan, Heather Green, Janet Phillips, MARGENTO, Matilde Ribeiro, Matthew Redman, Michelle Chan Schmidt, and Vuslat D. Katsanis

More entrypoints into the glorious Spring Asymptote, courtesy of our generous team!

Aigerim Tazhi’s “Following the Breath of the Earth” is a refreshing reminder of another way of life through Kazakh spirituality—one that treasures the interconnectedness of nature and all of the species in it, where nature stands for truth in an undivided and nonhierarchical ecosystem. The ancestral belief in the gods of the sky (Tengri) and earth (Umai) echos the current calls for decolonial approaches to climate justice. And yet, the critique of the tourists who contaminate glacier lakes in Tibet, or the rise of yurts for camping trips North America, or the odd questions asked of the poet in Rotterdam, gently caution against the performative gestures that appropriate Indigenous beliefs. The story’s motif of nomadic travel and breath fits well in this conception of an interconnected world.

This theme of nature and the interconnected ecosystem for alternative worldbuilding is carried out in several other articles, including Jang Okgwan’s poems (tr. Susan K), with motifs of water and moonlight; and Leeladhar Jagoori’s poems (tr. Matt Reeck), of mountains and terrain.

I also appreciated the attention on language, the limits of the written word, and the rebelliousness of vernacular expression in this issue, especially in Sebastián Sánchez’s interview with Chilean author Diamela Eltit (tr. Fionn Petch) and in the poetry of German-Turkish Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç (tr. Özgecan Kesici). Each provides glimpses into the capacity of language play and hybrid rule-bending for community-building, political resistance, and memorialization.

 —Vuslat D. Katsanis, Assistant Editor (Poetry)

Chen Yuhong’s poem “Buddhist Pine” opened my eyes to different ways of being still/degrees of stillness. The way the poem successively transposes metaphors of animal, seasonal, granitic, and athletic stillness on the motionless pine made me understand that things can be still in different ways. That the pine might have a willed, disciplined stillness, or that it might be coiled, or frozen, or at rest, or somehow all at once.

 —Matthew Redman, Digital Editor READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

April 26, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Alan Mendoza Sosa, Kathryn Raver, and Wambua Muindi

The latest in literary updates from Kenya, France, and the United States!

This week, our Editors-at-Large take us around the world for book launches, book fairs, and literary prizes! From a former Police Commandant’s memoir in Kenya, to a “harrowing” new release in France, to a mobile poetry reading in New York City, read on to learn more!

Wambua Muindi, Editor-at-Large, Reporting from Kenya

On Saturday, April 6, Qwani launched Qwani 02 at Alliance Française Nairobi. Qwani, founded by Keith Ang’ana, is a youth initiative meant to promote literature among young writers and readers, and whose main annual event is the book launch. The launch also featured music performances and selected readings from the works that made the second project. The one-of-a-kind anthology is multilingual and features 72 stories from some 60 enthusiastic Kenyan young writers. Ranging from short stories to essays to poetry, the included pieces demonstrated some innovative skills in storytelling and writing. The event culminated in book signings, a cake cutting, and a speech cameo by Lexa Lubanga who highlighted the recent kickoff to the fifth edition of the Kenyan Readathon.

In other news, Omar Abdi Shurie, former Commandant of Administration Police Training College in Kenya, launched his memoir Beyond the Call of Duty at the Embakasi AP Training Centre on Thursday, April 18. His book continues a Kenyan tradition of men in uniform documenting their lives and bequeathing literary history with an archive of service in the disciplined forces. With a 45-year stint in Kenya’s law enforcement, Shurie offers a rare view into matters of security for a police unit that is—to the public mind—known for its corruption and brutality. The former Commandant documents a life that exemplifies the Kenyan dream; hailing from Mandera in marginal North Eastern Kenya, Shurie ultimately rose to head the police service, working to maintain law and order by providing leadership for law enforcement. This is what Shurie’s life story personified, and what his book represents—a Kenya that is still becoming.

Kathryn Raver, Assistant Managing Editor, reporting from France

Two weeks ago, over 100,000 people flocked to Paris for the third annual Festival du Livre de Paris. The festival hosted these crowds alongside hundreds of authors from around the world for three days of industry discussion and literary celebration. In the spirit of the upcoming Summer Olympics, there was even a “Grande Dictée des Jeux,” where over 2700 “spelling athletes” competed to transcribe a series of spoken texts in exchange for a medal and free entry to the festival. 

READ MORE…

Blog Editors’ Highlights: Spring 2024

April 22, 2024  |  in News  |  by Bella Creel and Xiao Yue Shan

A deeper look into our latest edition!

With so many stellar pieces in the Spring 2024 issue, where to start? Read the blog editors’ top picks.

In a Bethlehem of the future, no one is left. Some undetermined ecological catastrophe, shown only through a black, viscous flood tiding over the narrow alleyways, had sent volcanic streams of smoke up through the minaret and the turreted roofs, obliterating the limestone, the arched windows, the indecipherable urban folds. This is where Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind’s 2019 film, In Vitro, takes place: a world where two of the last remaining survivors of the human race meet in an abandoned nuclear reactor. One of them is dying, and the other seems to be a designed individual, a living archive. In the dialogue that unites the disparate scenes—some archival, some distinctly futuristic, some shimmering with ghosts—the woman lying in the hospital bed says to her visitor: “Your memories are as real as mine.” The younger woman gets up and walks to the other side of the room. “I disagree,” she replies brusquely. “The pain these stories cause are twofold. . . because the loss I feel was never mine.”

Living within an increasingly crowded media landscape, combined with modern technology’s dissolution of physical distance, the significance of these lines from In Vitro do not escape most of us. The theorist Alison Landsberg called it “prosthetic memory”: a phenomenon in which recollections are lifted from a cultural landscape and implanted almost seamlessly within an individual consciousness, culminating in a psychic patchwork that does not distinguish between what has happened to us, and what was simply witnessed. Uban Cristina Ali Farah’s “Three Short Pieces”, in a delicate and tender translation by Brandon Michael Cleverly Breen, sees the Somalian-Italian author picking over such stitches in her own life, examining what has been lived and what has been given; what has been inherited and what has been picked up along the way. Some of the memories she discusses, as in a shared experience of migration, have slowly unwound inside her by way of language, and others, as in the first three years of her life, are echoed into the body through photographs, tastes, trails, stuttering fragments that she pieces together into a portrait of lineage, a half-there origin story. 

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

April 19, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Areeb Ahmad and José García Escobar

News from India and Central America!

The future is in translation! Catch up on global literary news as our editors report on major international award winners, breakthrough publications, and exhibitions fusing poetry with visual art.

Areeb Ahmad, Editor-at-Large, reporting from India

On April 9, Madhu Sriwastav was announced as the winner of the 2023 Muse India’s GSP Rao Translation Award for her work on Post Box 203 Nala Sopara by Chitra Mudgal, translated from the Hindi. Three other translators on the shortlist also received the jury’s commendation: Priyamvada R for her translation of Jeyamohan’s Stories of the True from the Tamil; Sridhar M and Alladi Uma for their translation of Telugu: The Best Stories of Our Times, edited by Volga; as well as Ratan Kumar Chattopadhyay for his translation of Manik Bandyopadhyay’s The Puppet’s Tale from the Bengali.

In other book prize news, the jury of the 2024 JCB Prize for Indian Literature was recently announced. Chaired by writer and translator Jerry Pinto, the other members include art historian and curator Deepthi Sasidharan; filmmaker and writer Shaunak Sen; scholar and translator Tridip Suhrud; and the artist Aqui Thami. The prize is currently open for entries, with the shortlist, the longlist, and the winner announced in September, October, and November respectively. Since the prize began in 2018, five out of six winners have been books in translation, with three out of those five being originally written in Malayalam. READ MORE…

Our Spring 2024 Edition Is Here!

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

Featuring Andrey Kurkov, Michela Murgia, Katie Holten, and a spotlight on literature from the Faroe Islands

When we fall asleep, where do we go? Why, of course, to a #midnightgarden‚ filled with exciting discoveries from 32 countries, including interviews with Andrey Kurkov and Diamela Eltit, fiction by Michela Murgia and Khrystia Vengryniuk, apocalyptic drama from Honduras, new translations of Alfred Döblin and Ludovico Ariosto—specifically, of his Orlando Furioso, the bestselling book of the sixteenth century—as well as a Special Feature on Literature from the Faroe Islands, sponsored by FarLit and headlined by Kim Simonsen and Rannvá Holm Mortensen. Ahead of the 60th Venice Biennale opening this weekend, we are proud to unveil our own international showcase—illustrated with elan by Korean guest artist Joon Yoon—still the most ambitious of any literary periodical.

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Among the highlights in this edition is visual artist Katie Holten—herself a veteran of the Venice Biennale—who returns to our pages to discuss her rustling, arresting Language of Trees, a response to ecological catastrophe. Michelle Chan Schmidt reviews a similar attempt to capture new language, crisis language, when extremes brought about by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine called for A Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War. Interviewing young Somali refugees for a dictionary entry, “Partire” or leave, Somali-Italian writer Ubah Cristina Ali Farah discovers how disasters—in this case, civil war and genocide—“reveal the limit of language.” In Fiction, a “great flood” forms the backdrop of Khrystia Vengryniuk’s mordantly funny but ultimately heartbreaking story about two star-crossed lovers. By contrast, LGBTQ+ rights activist Michela Murgia’s relatively uneventful piece centers a soon-to-be empty nester and the solution to her ennui that she tucks away in her wardrobe: a life-sized cutout of BTS boyband member Park Jimin.

Just this past week, the Financial Times reported that “rising nationalism and falling funding is reshaping the Venice Biennale;” at Asymptote, we find ourselves running up against the same constraints that keep the art world from fully realizing its potential (as a matter of fact, just carrying on remains a challenge because we are incorporated outside of the US and Europe, where most of literary arts funding lies). If you have benefitted from our work these past thirteen years, consider helping us grow this #midnightgarden as a sustaining or masthead member. Together, we can keep it alive.

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April 2024: Upcoming Opportunities in Translation

April 13, 2024  |  in News  |  by Kathryn Raver

From education to grants, Spring brings new opportunities for writers and translators! We distill some of the very best below.

CONTESTS

IMAGINE 2200

Grist is excited to open submissions for the fourth year of their Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors Short Story Contest.

Imagine 2200 is an invitation to writers from all over the globe to imagine a future in which solutions to the climate crisis flourish and help bring about radical improvements to our world.

In 2,500 to 5,000 words, show us the world you dream of building.

Your story should be set sometime between the near future and roughly the year 2200.

There is no cost to enter. The winning writer will be awarded $3,000, with the second- and third-place winners receiving $2,000 and $1,000, respectively. An additional nine finalists will each receive $300. All winners and finalists will have their story published in an immersive collection on Grist’s website. Stories will be judged by authors Omar El Akkad and Annalee Newitz.

The deadline for submissions is June 24th, 2024, 11:59 PT. Learn more and submit your story here.

 GRANTS & FUNDING

PEN TRANSLATES

English PEN’s biannual PEN Translates grant is now open for applications! This grant, which is open to UK publishers, was launched in 2012 as an incentive to publishers to pick up books in languages other than English. Since its conception, the grant has funded over 350 works of literature translated from over 90 different languages.

The grant funds up to 75% of translation costs for selected projects. Works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, prose, and plays, translated from any language into English, will be considered.

Starting this year, English PEN is also offering a second award in partnership with South Asian Literature in Translation. PEN Translates x SALT is open to publishers anywhere in the world that are looking to publish works of South Asian literature. Submissions must have been originally published in any of the official or unofficial languages of South Asia by an author that is a citizen or resident of a South Asian country, or who is of South Asian heritage.

Applications for both grants are due on the 31st of May. Apply here.

READ MORE…