Place: Hong Kong

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!

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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.

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Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

September 22, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Carol Khoury and Charlie Ng

The latest in literary updates from Palestine and Hong Kong!

With a slight delay due to technical issues, in this week of dispatches from around the world our Editors-at-Large introduce the most impactful releases from their regions as of late. From Palestinian poetry that “transcends mere expression” in its beauty and purpose, to a number of works that promote public engagement with literature in Hong Kong, read on to learn more.

Carol Khoury, Editor-at-Large for Palestine and the Palestinians, reporting from Palestine

Ibrahim Nasrallah, the acclaimed Palestinian poet and novelist, has recently released a poignant collection of four new poems. The collection is now translated from Arabic by Huda J. Fakhreddine and will be published by World Poetry. Written in the shadow of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, these verses serve as a powerful indictment of global indifference towards the Palestinian plight, echoing the enduring tragedy of the Nakba that began in 1948. 

“I write now so that I do not die,” Nasrallah asserts, emphasizing the urgency of his message. He believes that with each attempt to erase their existence, Palestinians become more defined, more visible. These poems, dedicated to Gaza—a small yet symbolically vast territory—transform its struggle into a universal fight against darkness and tyranny. As Pierre Joris notes, Nasrallah’s work transcends mere expression; it embodies a visceral scream of the body, mind, and spirit, affirming the existence of Palestinians while mourning the losses of those killed and the land that remains elusive.

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The Languages and Literatures at Play in Hong Kong: Jennifer Feeley on Translating Lau Yee-Wa’s Tongueless

July 25, 2024  |  in Book Club, Interviews  |  by Michelle Chan Schmidt

I love the idea of translating something that people say is not translatable, because everything is translatable.

Jennifer Feeley is the Anglophone voice of renowned Hong Kong writers such as Xi Xi 西西, Wong Yi 黃怡, and Lau Yee-Wa 劉綺華—whose thrilling and chilling Tongueless is our Book Club selection for June 2024. Set in a vividly multilingual Hong Kong, Tongueless is a heartrending horror novel about the human face of language disappearance, and what it means when we no longer have the words to speak to one another. Despite the contemporary social and political alienation depicted in this vivid novel, Sinophone Hong Kong literature is flourishing in English, German, Italian, and other European languages, testifying to the diversity and dynamism of the Hong Kong literary scene. Asymptote is grateful to Jennifer Feeley for her humour as she shares the process of translating Tongueless; her generosity in recounting the complex heritage of literary Chinese(s); and her commitment to championing stories from Hong Kong for global readers.

The Asymptote Book Club aspires to bring the best in translated fiction every month to readers around the world. You can sign up to receive next month’s selection on our website for as little as USD20 per book; once you’re a member, join our Facebook group for exclusive book club discussions and receive invitations to our members-only Zoom interviews with the author or the translator of each title. 

Michelle Chan Schmidt (MCS): How did your interest in Hong Kong literature arise?

Jennifer Feeley (JF): In the summer of 2005, I attended a poetry conference in Beijing, where I met the Hong Kong writer and scholar Leung Ping-kwan 梁秉鈞, also known as Yasi/ Yesi 也斯, or PK Leung. When PK came back from his trip to the mainland, he spent an entire day showing me around, and we talked a lot about Hong Kong poetry.

He recommended the work of Yau Ching 游靜—who’s also a filmmaker—and suggested that I also take a look at her film Ho Yuk 好郁 (Let’s Love Hong Kong), one of the earliest lesbian films from Hong Kong. Later in my graduate school career, an essay I wrote on Yau Ching’s poetry became my first academic publication. That was when I really started to consider Hong Kong literature—particularly poetry—and its genealogy. How do we define and categorise Hong Kong poetry? Can we do it by language?

As an academic at the University of Iowa, I taught Hong Kong cinema and literature, and began to write about Hong Kong film and research musical films from the 1960s. As I noted that a significant amount of Hong Kong literature had yet to be translated into English, I became increasingly frustrated. Even when translations existed, many were not available outside Hong Kong. For instance, I wanted to teach Eva Hung’s translation of Xi Xi’s My City《我城》, which was published by Renditions in Hong Kong in 1993, but the bookstore was unable to order it. I could only teach part of the novel through PDF versions of my copy, due to copyright restrictions.

When I finally bought a copy of Xi Xi’s Selected Poems, I fell in love with her work: her language was such a challenge. Purely for fun, I began to translate them. Shortly after, I was approached by an editor from Zephyr Press, who invited me to translate a book by an excellent Mainland Chinese poet. I liked this poet, but I was so in love with Xi Xi’s poetry that I decided to take a risk. I translated a sample of her work, and they obtained the rights to publish it. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

July 19, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Charlie Ng and Wambua Muindi

Literary updates from Kenya and Hong Kong!

This week, our editors-at-large take us around the world for the latest in festivals, book launches, and fairs! From Nairobi’s latest litfest, to a poignant memoir, to the interplay of film and literature in Hong Kong, read on to learn more!

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

This year’s NBO Litfest, a collaboration between Book Bunk and the international Hay Festival, was held 27–30 June across three public libraries in Nairobi (McMillan Memorial Library, Eastlands Library, and Kaloleni Library). Nothing short of a treat to literature enthusiasts, the festival was headlined by Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo, Stanley Gazemba, Lola Shoneyin, Taiye Selasi, Amitav Ghosh, and Djamila Ribeiro, among others. The festival’s first day was children-focused with incredible storytelling by Grace Wangari and Orpah Agunda, followed by a lineup of events over the weekend. As it happened against the backdrop of primarily youth-led protests against the 2024 Finance Bill, which by now have mutated to Kenya’s anti-government protests, the festival issued a statement in solidarity with the young people of Kenya.

READ MORE…

Announcing our June Book Club selection: Tongueless by Lau Yee-Wa

June 27, 2024  |  in Book Club, Reviews  |  by Michelle Chan Schmidt

Tongueless . . . [mirrors] Hong Kong’s plurality and [elucidates] the darkening, authoritarian clarity of Hong Kong’s future.

Lau Yee-Wa’s Tongueless was published before the 2019 pro-democracy protests that saw two million people take to the streets in Hong Kong, but its prescient atmosphere of psychological horror and brilliantly embedded language politics anticipated the curtailing of Hong Kong’s linguistic and social liberties after 2020. Demonstrating Lau’s percipience and sensitivity, Tongueless is a timely and vital addition to the growing corpus of Hongkongese literature available in English. Jennifer Feeley’s masterful translation follows in her track record of translating titles from Hong Kong—most recently Xi Xi’s Mourning a Breast (New York Review Books, 2024), for which she was awarded a 2019 National Endowment for the Arts.

The Asymptote Book Club aspires to bring the best in translated fiction every month to readers around the world. You can sign up to receive next month’s selection on our website for as little as USD20 per book; once you’re a member, join our Facebook group for exclusive book club discussions and receive invitations to our members-only Zoom interviews with the author or the translator of each title. 

Tongueless by Lau Yee-Wa, translated from the Chinese by Jennifer Feeley, Feminist Press (US) and Serpent’s Tail (UK), 2024

Allegory depends on wordplay, and Tongueless starts with its title. The two ideographs in the original Chinese title, 《失語》, stand respectively for ‘loss’ and ‘language’. Together, they can both denote aphasia, a form of brain damage that hampers speech, as well as a Chinese expression that refers to a ‘slip of the tongue’. In Jennifer Feeley’s acerbic translation of this novel by Lau Yee-Wa 劉綺華—originally published in 2019 in what the copyright page calls ‘Complex Chinese’—《失語》becomes Tongueless. Lau’s psychological story of horror and loneliness in Hong Kong transfigures the metaphorical resonance of tonguelessness—losing one’s language, or mother-tongue—into a near-literal embodiment of mutilation and physical deprivation, a bloody allegory for the silencing and violence that Lau charts through the interpersonal and institutional politics of contemporary Hong Kong society.

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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…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

April 12, 2024  |  in Dispatches, Weekly Roundup  |  by Andriana Hamas, Charlie Ng, and Sofija Popovska

The latest literary news from Macedonia, Hong Kong, and Bulgaria!

This week, our editors-at-large report on prizes in Macedonia, literary festivals in Hong Kong, and unexpected literary losses in Bulgaria. Read on to find out more!

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

The Slavko Janevski Foundation, a Macedonian foundation dedicated to the advancement and promotion of cultural values, recently selected Edinstven Matičen Broj (which translates to Unique Master Citizen Number) by Lidija Dimkovska as the novel of the year for 2023.

Lidija Dimkovska was born in1971 in Skopje. She is a poet, novelist, and translator, whose literary interests and expertise extend beyond national borders and include early Macedonian poetry, contemporary Slovenian poetry, and contemporary minority and migrant writing in Slovenia. Currently based in Slovenia, Dimkovska works as a freelance translator of Romanian and Slovenian literature. Her work has been translated into 15 languages, including English, German, French, Romanian, Slovenian, Croatian, Polish, Serbian, and Albanian. English translations of her work include the poetry collection Do Not Awaken Them with Hammers—translated from the Macedonian by Ljubica Arsovska and Peggy Reid, and published in 2006 by Ugly Duckling Presse—and What Is It Like?—selected poetry translated by Ljubica Arsovska, Patricia Marsh and Peggy Reid and published in 2021 by Wrecking Ball Press—which made World Literature Today’s 75 Notable Translations of 2022 list. Her poetry has been described as “honest and uncompromising” by the writer Goce Smilevski; Edinstven Matičen Broj is no different. Named after an identification number assigned to every citizen of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, it offers an unflinching study of identity loss and dehumanization.

“The question that I ask in the novel and that each of us should ask is whether we really exist, even when we have a unique master citizen number, and that question everyone should answer separately, individually and, perhaps, only in silence of their heart,” said Dimkovska at a recent press conference. The jury at Slavko Janevski highlighted her “acute sensitivity to zeitgeist”, which has allowed Dimkovska to dramatize the abstraction of “rootlessness and displacement” in “concrete life scenarios”. Her prose devastates with its candor—she writes in a clipped and probing narrating voice, reminding readers of “[m]oments when you can no longer breathe in the cramped apartment, when you are so lonely and alienated from the people who should be close to you, that you simply have to go somewhere so as not to lose yourself.” READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

February 9, 2024  |  in Dispatches, Weekly Roundup  |  by Charlie Ng, René Esaú Sánchez, and Sofija Popovska

The latest literary news from Hong Kong, Mexico, and North Macedonia!

This week, our Editors-at-Large explore blockchain publishing, poets’ novels, and literary surrealism. Read on to find out more!

Charlie Ng, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong

In December, Hong Kong independent bookstore Mount Zero Books announced that it will be closing in March 2024 due to anonymous complaints on the bookstore’s “illegal occupation of government land”, and the resulting warning from the Lands Department regarding the tiled platform outside of the bookstore. Mount Zero Books’ experience is not an isolated issue; it is part of the narrowing of Hong Kong’s cultural space under the current political climate, in which independent publishers and bookstores are facing increasing control and censorship. In 2022, for instance, local independent publisher Hillway Press was not allowed to participate in the annual Book Fair organised by Hong Kong Trade Development Council. The publishing house then planned to host a “Hongkongers’ Book Fair” featuring 14 independent local publishers and bookstores in the shopping mall Mall Plus in Causeway Bay. Unfortunately, the book fair was forced to cancel as they were accused of violating the terms of venue use. In December 2023, one of the founders of Hillway Press emigrated and the company decided to close down. What is more, two of Hong Kong’s remaining independent bookstores, Have A Nice Stay and Hunter Bookstore, have said that they face frequent complaints and regular monitoring by government departments.

In light of increasing challenges — both economic and political — faced by the local publishing industry, Hong Kong writers are beginning to explore new means of publishing their works and reaching out to readers. Hong Kong writer Dung Kai-cheung has been counting down to the 15 February publication of his new work, Autofiction, on his own writing platform, Dungfookei. Autofiction will be published in the form of an NFT. The new autobiographical nonfiction is part of the writer’s exploration of the potential of Web3’s blockchain technology for decentralizing publishing and granting more autonomy in user control and ownership of data. In 2023, Dung joined Likecoin — an application-specific blockchain for decentralized publishing developed by Hong Kong entrepreneur Ko Chung-kin — to republish his famous novel Tiangong Kaiwu·Lifelike, which became the first Chinese novel to be published as an NFT. While Tiangong Kaiwu·Lifelike is available for purchase on Likecoin’s website, Dung also developed his own platforms Dungfookei and DKC in Translation to digitalise his works and interact with readers in new ways. Although the project is still experimental, by turning to the web for more freedom and opportunities, Dung’s foray into Web3 and NFT publishing represents an innovative frontier in the evolving landscape of literature and author-reader interaction. READ MORE…

Winter 2024: Highlights from the Team

January 29, 2024  |  in News  |  by Alex Tan, Anna Rumsby, Bridget Peak, Ellen Elias-Bursac, José García Escobar, Julie Shi, Mia Manns, and Michelle Chan Schmidt

Get excited to dip into our Winter 2024 issue with these highlights from our team!

Ilya Kaminsky’s “Reading Dante in Ukraine” makes an impassioned case for the crucial role of art amid the horrors of war. What we need, as Dante’s journey shows us, is to defend ourselves with it: a tune to walk to, even in the underworld, as long as one still walks. In Miklós Vámos’s “Electric Train,”  translated by Ági Bori‚ the question-answer format gives the piece levity and rhythm, and the counterpoint of the humor interplaying with the troubled relationships brings it powerful depth. I found wisdom in the wry humor of Jaime Barrios Carrillo’s poems in David Unger’s translation. I love the image of angels spending the evening in their hotel rooms, ironing their enormous white wings.

—Ellen Elias-Bursac, Contributing Editor

The masterful language in Ági Bori’s translation, as though hand-holding the reader through a children’s story, and the simple act of gifting a present in the story belie the depth and complexity of emotional turmoil that wash over Miklós Vámos’s characters in “Electric Train,” a turmoil that seemingly hits out of nowhere like a wave yet in fact stems from a deep brewing well of built up memories and tensions. The contrast highlights all the more the challenges, and perhaps even limits, of recognizing and understanding another’s intentions, experiences, and feelings.

Rage, sorrow, resilience, helplessness, hope, a hunger for life and love and connection, grief, a numbing screaming despair: it is difficult to put into words the sensations that ran through me as I read Samer Abu Hawwash’s “My People” in Huda J. Fakhreddine’s translation. It cannot possibly compare to the feelings and thoughts of Samer Abu Hawwash and the Palestinian people, to the reality of having each day and moment narrow down to dried bread and tear tracks.

I was intrigued by Laura Garmeson’s discussion, in her review of Brazilian author Itamar Vieira Junior’s Crooked Plow, of the tongue as “both creator and destroyer. It has the power to make and unmake worlds.” It is a through line in Crooked Plow that reminds us of the power and possibilities of language and story to shape our lives. Garmeson’s review, in a way, is also a fire that kindles awareness of Itamar Vieira Junior’s work and the legacies, realities, and possible futures for Afro-Brazilian communities. The tongue as symbol also feels like a through line between these pieces in their rumination on what is gained and lost and pushed aside in the choices we make of what, how, and when we say (or write) things, or not.

—Julie Shi, Senior Executive Assistant

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

November 3, 2023  |  in Dispatches, Weekly Roundup  |  by Charlie Ng, Wambua Muindi, and Zohra Salih

The latest literary news from Hong Kong, India, and Kenya!

This week, our Editors-at-Large report on documentaries about poetry, award-winning short stories, and exciting translation fellowships. From novels shortlisted for big prizes to upcoming movie screenings, read on to find out more!

Charlie Ng, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong

Taiwan’s 60th annual Golden Horse Awards will be held on November 25 and Hong Kong film director Ann Hui’s most recent documentary Elegies is nominated for the Best Documentary Feature. Elegies was already selected as the opening film for the Hong Kong International Film Festival earlier this year, which was a rare occasion as poetry—the subject of the documentary—used to be a niche literary interest in the city. The first part of Elegies presents a sketching of contemporary Hong Kong poetry through interviews of Hong Kong poets and archival materials of Xi Xi and Leung Ping-kwan. The second and third part of the documentary are dedicated to two Hong Kong poets, Huang Canran and Liu Wai-tong, respectively, who both have deep cultural roots with Hong Kong but choose to live elsewhere. Hui studied literature at university, and poetry had long been a subject matter that the director wished to explore through the medium of the moving picture. The film is her way of paying homage to local poetry and the city, as well as an elegy for a bygone era.

To celebrate the nomination and achievement of Elegies, M+ Museum has organised a few screening sessions of the documentary in November. The November 18 screening includes a post-screening dialogue with the director and the featured poets, moderated by M+ film curator Li Cheuk-to. Ann Hui will discuss her ideas about poetry and the implications of poetry for her film productions. The three artists will engage in conversations on the essence of poetry, as well as their own stories of poetry writing. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

September 22, 2023  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Charlie Ng, Heloisa Selles, and MARGENTO

The latest literary news from Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, and Spain!

This week, our team members bring us news from around the world, from worldbuilding at a conference in Canada to reflections on the ties between Ireland and Spain. Read on for more on a bilingual publication out of Hong Kong, and Irish press publishing literature from the Romanian diaspora, and more!

Heloisa Selles, Executive Assistant, reporting from Toronto, Canada

 It was the last Saturday of August when a crowd of speculative fiction lovers gathered to attend the AugurCon, in Toronto. It was the first in-person event promoted by Augur Magazine, a biannual publication that promotes Canadian and Indigenous voices writing fantasy, science fiction, and other uncommon forms of genre fiction. As a reader and an appreciator of the strange and unusual, I knew I had to be there.

As the afternoon went by—a mild, muggy breeze bringing spurts of rain and, consequently, people in and out of the venue—I noticed my perception of neighboring urban outlines changing, shaped by the imaginative perspectives on worldbuilding the conference highlighted. Author Larissa Lai, one of the participants of “The Speculative City” panel, spoke about utopia as more than the capacity to imagine something better (or as a concept on the flip side of pessimism), but as a continuous investigation that honors the function of the dream. What is better in the dream, and for whom? “The dream as we dream it may not come to pass,” she said, “but our dreams impinge on flows.” This lyrical statement about the ethics of creation reminded me of the proverb: “The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second-best time is now.” In SFF, creating new visions of what the world could become is also a way to keep the door open for those who will come after you, writers and readers alike.

Besides the panels, Augur also organized workshop AMAs with leading professionals in the publishing industry. I missed some discussions due to the overlapping agenda—and an enthusiastic, boisterous crowd—but I liked what I saw. I found the deliberate choice of keeping statistics out of discussion rather curious, especially in light of how BookTok helped boost sales in 2022 and fantasy genres went up 26.5% in sales in the first half of 2023, according to Publisher Weekly. Another overlooked but crucial aspect of publishing speculative fiction is the importance of funding for writers. This topic was partially addressed by a workshop about grants, which detailed the eligibility criteria for the Toronto Arts Council (TAC) Writers Program. In the federal sphere, the 2021-26 Strategic Plan created by the Canada Council for the Arts delineates how it is investing $1.6B in grants to authors to support artistic and literary creation.

The day was long and busy. As I packed up my modest book haul at the end of the one-day event, marinating in thoughts about fictional worlds, I noticed an old yearning being rekindled, the promise of being wrapped up in a fantastic story growing inside me. Maybe that is the primordial role of speculative fiction: to help us cope with real life by allowing us to step out of it, even if just for a little bit. READ MORE…

What’s New with the Crew? (Aug 2023)

August 17, 2023  |  in News  |  by Lee Yew Leong

Find out what our staff members have been up to when we’re not editing your favorite literary journal!

Editor-at-Large for Palestine Carol Khoury will be the guest editor of a special issue of the Jerusalem Quarterly, titled “Write-Minded: Jerusalem in Literature”; check out her call for submissions here or email her for further details.

Newsletter Editor Cody Siler published an essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books about  the impact of the American suspense writer Patricia Highsmith’s diaries on her critical reputation.

Chris Tanasescu aka MARGENTO, Editor-at-Large for Romania & Moldova, chaired in June the 5th edition of #GraphPoem at Digital Humanities Summer Institute, a “data commoning” hyper-platform performance involving hundreds of participants and watched by thousands of viewers online.

Nonfiction Editor Ian Ross Singleton translated four poems by Marina Eskina for Barzakh.

M.L. Martin has a new translation of the pre-10 c. Anglo-Saxon queer, feminist poet in the latest issue of Cordite.

Assistant Editor Megan Sungyoon‘s translation of The Cheapest France in Town by Korean poet Seo Jung Hak is scheduled to be published by World Poetry Books in October 2023.

Blog Editor Meghan Racklin’s essay on sore throats as illness and as metaphor was published in Full Stop and her review of The Light Room by Kate Zambreno was featured in The Brooklyn Rail.

Assistant Editor (Fiction) Michelle Chan Schmidt published a review of Owlish by Dorothy Tse, translated from the Chinese by Natascha Bruce, in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal.

Editor-at-Large for North Macedonia Sofija Popovska‘s Macedonian translation of the novella Im Kopf von Bruno Schulz by Maxim Biller was published in July by Makedonika Litera Press; additionally, “Thaumatropes”, a poetry collection she co-authored with Jonah Howell also appeared in July, published by Newcomer Press.

Copy Editor Urooj recently had two poems published in Gulmohur Quarterly‘s Issue 10, released in June 2023. They were also invited to share their poems at the Bangalore Poetry Festival, in Bangalore, India as one of four young, emerging poets in a panel called “Poems in Progress.”

*****

Interested in joining us behind the scenes? We’re still finalizing our mid-year recruitment drive—hurry and apply if you’d like to help power the world’s literature! 

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

August 4, 2023  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Areeb Ahmad, Charlie Ng, and José García Escobar

Dispatches from Hong Kong, Central America, and India!

In this week of dispatches from around the world, our Editors-at-Large report on literary awards, the establishment of a literature museum, and book fairs! From controversy surrounding the new museum in Hong Kong to the most recent Indian texts in translation, read on to learn more!

Charlie Ng, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong

Public voices demanding for a museum of literature have been around for years in Hong Kong. On July 22, during the Hong Kong Book Fair 2023, Poon Yiu-ming, the Chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Writers, announced that the Museum of Hong Kong Literature would be inaugurated in April next year in Wan Chai with support from Chief Executive Lee Ka-chiu and the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Poon petitioned Lee last year on the establishment of a literary museum. However, the announcement has attracted controversy in the literary arena. 

The concept of a museum for Hong Kong literature was proposed by a group of local writers and scholars, including Dung Kai-cheung, Tang Siu-wa, Yip Fai, Liu Waitong, and Chan Chi-tak, among others, who formed the “Hong Kong Literature Museum Advocacy Group,” in 2009. A signed petition that successfully solicited signatures from hundreds of local and international Chinese writers and scholars was published in Ming Pao, which proposed to establish a literary museum in the West Kowloon Cultural District. Since the suggestion was not adopted by the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority then, the Advocacy Group proceeded to establish the House of Hong Kong Literature as a non-governmental organization for promoting and preserving Hong Kong literature.

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