Place: Philippines

Translation Tuesday: Two Sketches from Vicente Rama’s Portrait

July 12, 2022  |  in Translations  |  by Alton Melvar M Dapanas

Why not separate a couple who always fight like cats and dogs? Even twins who stick together at the womb are separated at birth.

This Translation Tuesday, we are thrilled to bring to you two sketches from Vicente Rama translated from the Binisayâ by Alton Melvar M Dapanas. Join our Editor-at-large for the Philippines, as they show us through the literary and linguistic histories of a writer widely considered as the Father of Cebu City.

“The following dinalídalí (sketches or vignettes) are taken from Larawan [Portrait], a collection of sugilanon (short stories) and dinalídalí written by fictionist Vicente Rama (1887-1956) published in 1921 by The Cebu Press. In Portrait, realism and radio drama sentimentality, sometimes street humour, Christian didacticism, and folklore, backdropped with the ethos of working-class ruralscape, are prevalent, symptomatic of late 19th to early 20th century Philippine fiction in Binisayâ, Tagalog, and other local languages. To National Artist for Literature and Cebuano Studies scholar Resil B Mojares, this comes as no surprise “considering the contact Filipino writers had with Romantic literature through Spanish and American intermediaries.” Rama himself wrote from within a particular tradition in Philippine literature in Binisayâ: the dinalídalí, in itself comparable to the binirisbiris and pinadalagan (sometimes spelled pinadagan, or the Spanish instantanea and rafaga), “short account[s of] spontaneous and hurried quality” which subversively proliferated in vernacular publications even at the imposition of American literature and the English language in the public educational system after the Philippine-American War. Most sugilanon and dinalídalí from Rama’s Portrait started as serialised prose pieces from Kauswagan [Progress] and the bilingual Nueva Fuerza/Bag-ong Kusog [New Force], both periodicals he himself edited, the latter, he owned. 

My impetus behind translating Rama is grounded on two rationales. First, it has been 100 years since the publication of Portrait. The second reason is geopolitical. “Few works in Cebuano [or Binisayâ],” according to Mojares, “have been translated into other languages, whether foreign or Philippine. This is essentially a problem of power: Cebuano has historically been relegated to a position subordinate to Spanish, English, and Tagalog. The concentration of state power and media resources in a Tagalog-speaking primate region and the promotion of Tagalog as ‘base’ for the national [Filipino] language, or as the national language itself, have marginalized regional languages like Cebuano. As a consequence, the development of Cebuano has been stunted.”

Perhaps the primary challenge in translating Rama is that his Binisayâ is distant from mine not only in terms of the temporal (a century apart) but also in the geopolitical (my native tongue is a different dialect within Binisayâ; his is contentiously considered ‘the standard’). His Binisayâ—in its contemporary form a language already heavily influenced by, and possibly the language spoken by the ‘natives’ who had first contact with, the former Iberian colonisers—is also interlaced with the conventions of mechanics and punctuation from Spanish which are no longer used. A product of his own time, Rama’s moral compass is also very different from mine. While “Ang mga mahadlokon” [The cowards] paints a homophobic and effeminophobic picture of two unmarried—possibly queer-coded for gay—men living together as chicken-hearted village idiots, the fictional universe of “Divorcio” [Divorce] is where victim-blaming coupled, as always, with misogyny, is normalised. So beyond textual concerns, my act of translating Rama was also a sort of my confronting of the perpetual elephant in the room in several works within Philippine literature in Binisayâ from a century ago and even that which pervades until today. Such is propagated by paleo/conservative circles of old, (predominantly) male writers who are remnants—or, I daresay, residues—not only of this particular aesthetics, but also of this sociopolitical alt-Right conservativism which, with misplaced regionalism in the mix, has enabled and is still complicit to Philippine authoritarian fascistic regimes.”

—Alton Melvar M Dapanas 

The Cowards 

It was 3:30 at Sunday dawn, the day of the mass at church. Ating and Tuloy both rose from bed and got on their feet. 

“Let’s go, Tuloy. It’s time for church.”

“I know. I even called you up earlier.” 

And so the two went down the stairs. I should say that these two bachelors are known in town for being chicken-hearted so not a day goes by without them doing things together. As they trek through the dimness of the road, they realized they’re being followed. With the loud footsteps behind them, Tuloy felt the chill. He poked Ating and whispered, “Check out who’s behind us.” 

“Ah, not me,” Ating pleaded.

And so on they went while holding each other’s hands tight. When they stop, the one behind them stopped as well. When they run, the one behind them ran as well.

“We’re going to die, Tuloy!” Ating mumbled.

“Don’t say a word! Just pray,” was Tuloy’s reply. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

July 1, 2022  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Amaryllis Gacioppo, and Katarina Gadze

The latest in world literature from Italy, the Philippines, and Croatia!

This week, our editors on the ground are bringing you news of summer literary festivities, publishers fighting back against silence, gatherings of award-winning writers, translation exhibitions, and more! 

Amaryllis Gacioppo, Newsletter Editor, reporting from Italy

Italians are known for their ability to delight in la dolce vita, and this exuberance is never more evident than in the summer season, when the entire country throws itself into festivities. The Italian literary world is no exception: from June 9 to June 12, indie publisher festival Una marina di libri held its thirteenth edition in the massive open-air courtyard of Palermo’s Villa Filipina. Along with an indie book fair—which included publishers such as Edizioni E/O (Elena Ferrante’s Italian publisher), Iperborea (an Italian publisher specialised in translations of Northern European literature), La Nuova Frontiera (a Rome-based publisher focusing on Spanish, Catalan, and Portuguese-language translations), and famed Palermitan publisher Sellerio—festival-goers were treated to poetry readings, music, wine, pizza, and magazine launches—such as that of Arabpop, a beguiling Italian magazine on its second issue, which is devoted to Arab art and literature. This year’s festival was dedicated to both Pier Paolo Pasolini and the thirty-year anniversary of the Capaci massacre (in which one of Palermo’s famed and beloved anti-mafia magistrates, Giovanni Falcone, was murdered by Cosa Nostra, along with his wife and three police escorts). One such event featured theatre and music students from Teatro Biondo and Palermo’s Conservatory giving music-accompanied dramatic readings of pieces by Pasolini, Giuliana Saladino, and Leonardo Sciascia at various times and locations around the festival. Others featured educational talks for young people about famous anti-mafia figures including Falcone and Paolo Borsellino (Falcone’s friend and fellow beloved magistrate, murdered with five police escorts by Cosa Nostra less than two months after Falcone), and the presentation of Pietro Grasso and Alessio Pasquini’s new book Il mio amico Giovanni, in which the former spoke about his friendship with Falcone.

In other news, the shortlist for Italy’s most prestigious prize for book-length fiction, the Strega Prize, was announced on June 8. Among the nominees are Marco Amerighi, for his second novel Randagi (Strays); Fabio Bacà for his second novel Nova; Alessandra Carati for her first novel E poi saremo salvi (And then we’ll be safe); prior Strega nominee Mario Desiati for Spatriati (Patriates); Veronica Galletta for her second novel Nina sull’argine (Nina on the riverbank); Claudio Piersanti for Quel maledetto Vronskij (That damn Vronkskij); and Veronica Raimo for Niente di vero (Nothing true). I found the nominees list to be exciting, with many up-and-coming writers unearthed, along with more established writers that have yet to be appreciated in the Anglophone world. With the exception of Desiati, Piersanti, and Raimo, most are relative newcomers on their first or second book, and—with the exception of the latter two—have yet to be translated into English. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

June 17, 2022  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Eva Wissting, and Jacqueline Leung

New books, events, and publishing houses from the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Sweden!

This week, our editors from around the world report on new acclaimed translations from the Philippines, Hong Kong writers discussing art-marking during political restrictions on their freedom of expression, and a new publishing house in Sweden focused on investigative journalism and books translated from Swedish. Read on to find out more!

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

Literary translation in the Philippines is more alive than ever. Asymptote contributor Bernard Capinpin won the 2022 PEN America’s Heim Grant for his translation of the late Edel Garcellano’s sci-fi novel Maikling Imbestigasyon ng Isang Mahabang Pangungulila (Kalikasan Press, 1990) [A Brief Investigation to a Long Melancholia]. Also, obstetrician and travel writer Alice Sun Cua’s landmark project with Sto. Niño de Cebu Publishing House “ferried” post-Spanish Civil War novelist Carmen Laforet’s Nada into Hiligaynon language.

Aimed at enhancing the Filipino “diasporic cultural footprint around the world,” the country’s National Book Development Board offers translation grants to authors and publishers of children’s literature, classical and contemporary prose, graphic literature, as well as historico-cultural works written in Philippine languages (Ilocano, Cebuano, Waray, Hiligaynon, Meranaw, Tausug, and Kinaray-a) and foreign languages (German, Spanish, French, Arabic, Japanese, and Chinese). This year, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts also conferred the Rolando S. Tinio Translator’s Prize to SEAWrite awardee Roberto T. Añonuevo for his translation of the late National Artist for Literature Cirilo F. Bautista’s phenomenological study Words and Battlefields: A Theoria on the Poem (De La Salle University Publishing House, 1998) [Mga Salita at Larangan: Isang Pagninilay sa Tula] from English.

READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: Three Poems by Jim Pascual Agustin

November 30, 2021  |  in Translations  |  by Jim Pascual Agustin

At home I no longer need to bolt / the windows shut

This Translation Tuesday, we feature the award-winning poet Jim Pascual Agustin who—born in the Philippines and subsequently moved to South Africa in 1994—represents what it means to write from a bilingual and binational space, to write between and across two homes. Self-translated from the Filipino across three decades, these poems speak to moments of precarious fragility that stretch from the life of a cockroach to his speaker’s experience of existential freedom. In Agustin’s translator’s note, we are treated to a mind that views the relationship between writing and translation as symbiotic—troubling the easy distinction and hierarchy between an original and a translation—as he explores his attitude towards self-translated writing as a kind of feedback loop and versioning. 

“More and more I have been looking at my self-translated writing as ‘versions’ instead of traditional translations. These poems were written and translated over many years. The original Filipino version of ‘Upon Waking’ (‘Paggising’) was written in 1994 and first appeared nearly two decade later in my all Filipino poetry collection Baha-bahagdang Karupukan (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, Manila 2011). I first attempted translating it in 2010, and then again in 2014. With feedback from a special international group of friends from an online discussion group called The Boathouse, I decided to leave out an entire stanza that was in the middle part of the original. The cut made for a stronger version of the poem. ‘No Past, No Future’ sees publication ahead of the original Filipino (‘Walang Kahapon, Walang Kinabukasan’). This poem was written, revised and translated on the same day in January 2021, with each version influencing the completion of the other. To me, though, the English version lacks the immediacy and nearly blunt force of the original such that it almost comes off, in comparison, as a cushioned version. I attempted translating ‘For the Saviours’ ten years after the original (‘Para sa mga Tagapagligtas’ from Baha-bahagdang Karupukan, USTPH 2011) was published. I don’t have the exact date of composition, but I think it dates back to the years following the 1986 People Power EDSA Revolution which toppled the Marcos dictatorship. Looking at the images again, I cannot help but see that they are just as apt to the tragedies brought upon by the current Duterte regime in the Philippines.”

—Jim Pascual Agustin

Upon Waking

Wing of cockroach
lies on the floor, but
no trace of its body

or a single leg.
Last night I heard it
crawling like

someone whispering
in the wall
next to my bed.

I pick up the wing,
it feels breakable.
Distant echo

of the flapping
of angels or demons.
Now it is here,

right here
between
my fingers

that are nothing
but mere flesh,
mere bone. READ MORE…

What’s New in Translation: November 2021

November 8, 2021  |  in In This Together, New in Translation, Reviews  |  by Fairuza Hanun, Georgina Fooks, Shawn Hoo, and Suhasini Patni

New titles this month from the Philippines, Indonesia, Syria, and Slovakia!

This month, our selection of translated titles traverse the battlefield and the surfaces of paintings, lonely post-Communist apartment blocs and conservative spaces housing queer, radical instances of love. In language described by our editors and reviewers as potent, provocative, capacious, and full of longing, these four titles present an excellent pathway into the writers who are bringing the immediacies of experience into powerful socio-cultural commentary on our reality: Martin Hacla, Norman Erikson Pasaribu, Ramy Al-Asheq, and Monika Kompaníková. 

angels

There Are Angels Walking the Fields by Marlon Hacla, translated from the Filipino by Kristine Ong Muslim, Broken Sleep Books, 2021

Review by Shawn Hoo, Assistant Editor

Words happened. Cow became
Cow. The word milk gushed in every throat.

From this seemingly deflationary announcement that opens one of Marlon Hacla’s poems—“Words happened.”—an entire landscape is animated and given breath at the very juncture of utterance. Not only do ears of corn and a crown of birds begin to stir, so too does the speaker, finding himself transported by the magical properties of language: “I uttered the word joy / And I was once again playing a game / As a child with my friends.” Read as the collection’s ars poetica, we might say that in Hacla’s debut poetry collection, words do not simply refer to things. They move things, and each marks an occasion in the world; they sing the world into movement.

There Are Angels Walking the Fields—first published in 2010 under the Ubod New Authors Series by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts in the Philippines—opens with a lilting “Invocation,” its unbroken anaphora incanting the world of inanimate things (“In the name of the rock. In the name of the lily blossom”), of unarticulated desires (“In the name of burned / Letters from a concubine”) and of those who have been cast into the margins (“In the name of wives / Abandoned by their husbands. In the name of gay fathers”). Who could believe more in language’s ability to intervene in the world than the one who uses them in supplication? In opening the collection with this list, Hacla immediately throws his lot with the downtrodden and the forgotten—those who may not have the ability to speak—and soothes them with the divine balm of words. In her translator’s note, past contributor Kristine Ong Muslim justifies her sharpening of the poem’s decisiveness in order to heighten the quality of invocation. Thus, a line more literally translated as “In the name of hands / Not touched” becomes “In the name of hands / Never held.” Might we also consider the translator as one who practices the art of invocation—except rather than calling out in prayer, the translator calls inward, to be possessed by both languages? Where, in order for words to perform the magic of the original—for cow to become cow—something first has to happen to them? In Muslim’s translation, Hacla’s lines are screwed tight; each enjambment turns brutally, and every line sweats with a potent lyricism, as how this opening poem rollicks to an epiphany by the end:

[. . .] In the name of faces hidden.
By a black veil. In the names of ears
That had not known the sound of a violin. In the name of a flower
That bloomed in the morning and wilted by nightfall.
In your name, you who would someday die and fade away.

READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: “Anatomy of a Servant” by Allan N. Derain

July 14, 2020  |  in Translations  |  by Bernard Capinpin

“If you could only see me now, Mother,” she said to the only photograph stuck to the frame of her mirror.

In this week’s Translation Tuesday, a young woman’s sense of self-worth is prey to the forces of contemporary domestic servitude in Allan Derain’s “Anatomy of a Servant”. What begins as an endearing epistolary abruptly shifts to the perspective of our narrator, Asunta, as she seeks to build a better life for herself. The servant’s body becomes the target of dehumanization on the basis of class, gender, and nationality, until Asunta’s consciousness comes to internalize these repeated acts of violence as “necessary” and even “deserved”. Across these three short sections, Derain explores the classed anxieties of a dutiful daughter who longs for a brighter, freer future, though who also longs for home.


I. Empty-Headed

May 4, 2004

My Dear Asunta,

Before anything else, how is my good daughter? I hope you’re doing well. Are you eating on time? If you’re wondering, don’t worry about us. Marissa will be in high school the following school year. Your sister is looking for cash, so she now mans Tonga’s store. The money you have sent is enough, but we know that you are saving for something important. More people are asking me to sew, now that school is about to start.

You wrote in your last letter that the old man you attended to has already passed away. Does that mean that you can now come back home? Our fiesta will begin next week. I am part of the dancing group who will perform the Alembong in the parade. Don’t worry, and I’ll send you a picture so that it’ll be as if you were here in the fiesta . . .

This was what she always did: gazing out the window early in the morning. It was only yesterday she received the letter but by now, she had already read it countless of times as she faced the window. She glanced at her watch. She had thirty more minutes left to have the world to herself. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: “Bestiary” by Mike L. Bigornia

June 2, 2020  |  in Translations  |  by Bernard Capinpin

And for the first time, she felt throbbing from inside her chest.

In this week’s Translation Tuesday, a wish bestows the meaning of life in this allegorical prose poem by Mike L. Bigornia, excerpted from his award-winning collection, Dark Prose. A Diwata, a divine spirit of precolonial Filipino theology, grants a wish to the World of Beings, which includes the moon, the stars, the stone, and the wind. But the river wishes for something unusual—and she might not be the only one making the request. “Bestiary” is a thoughtful modern-day creation fable about the primacy of human intimacy. 

This was the one and fateful hour. Though the Diwata be gracious, this was set to happen for the first and final time in the World of Beings.

Every being could make a wish to the Diwata but only once. Each granting of a wish lasts an entire night. So each wish should be of value; each fulfillment enough to stand the test of time.

That night, the Diwata went around the woods and listened to the wishes of the beings.

The moon made a wish and the Diwata giggled. The stone made a wish and it nodded. The wind made a wish and it puffed its cheeks. The stars made a wish and its eyes shone.

Until it saw the anxious river. “What is your wish, Beloved Child?”

“I want to know the meaning of life, Diwata. I believe I would find it once you give me breath.” The Diwata looked back, as if it had remembered something and gazed at the distance. But only for a moment. After, it smiled and turned back toward its companion.

Before the Diwata vanished, all the beings had made their wish. And before midnight, the river had now transformed to a beautiful maiden. Her complexion unblemished, fresh. Her hair flowed lavishly like waves. Under tonight’s unbelievable light from the clouds, her body seemed to glide through the woods.

What rare features, what rare sight! By her charm that surpasses the jasmine and the ilang-ilang, the cicadas resounded, the owls aroused in half-sleep, the civet made to sing. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: Two Poems by Allan Popa

July 2, 2019  |  in Translations  |  by Bernard Capinpin

How does one pass on to others / that which is clenched

Allan Popa’s poems are sublime examples of quiet that is every bit as piercing as a shout. Through visions of a body struggling to recognize the world, we are reminded through these subtle, yet vivid lines of what is kept, what is gone, and what is passed on. Wounds, light, reflection—all these things we see with our hands.

My Hands

Once again, I traced the path of a boat that healed the water. I whispered a courtesy and was permitted to pass the same old route. You haven’t gone far, said the stone that first wounded my knee. Yet I had believed it and let the hurrying damselflies through the window. On the roof, the leaves of the coconut are still sweeping their own shadow. The old neighbors are still trying to recognize themselves in the foggy mirror while my own face does not even recognize itself. Ay, if only my hands could be used for cover! How many times have I been let down? How many times have I tried cupping the water with my palms without my sense leaking out? I have nothing to reach you save my hands.

READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: “The Logic of the Soap Bubbles” by Luna Sicat-Cleto

April 30, 2019  |  in Translations  |  by Bernard Capinpin

. . . actually, it has now become more complicated because I now get imaginary enemies and lovers.

The mania present in this week’s Translation Tuesday is forceful and visceral, poured forth with a tide of senses, memories, tastes, smells, and visions. Upon the arrival of a spectral personification named Sandali, the inner monologue of Luna Sicat-Cleto’s narrator detonates, threading seamlessly through the past, the present, and the future. The word sandali, in Filipino, can be roughly translated as “moment.” In this story, we are reminded of exactly how broad, and how various, a moment can be.

That moment comes, unexpected, uninvited, she just appears, like a visitor, a visitor whom I cannot shove off, I let her inside, offer her coffee, she will not drink the coffee, she will merely stroke the cup’s ear, and will look at me from head to toe, like a child, she will stare, and I know that she is sizing me up because I too am sizing her, she will look out the window and whisper something about the weather, I will nod, as if I had heard what she had whispered but actually hadn’t, I have been deaf for a long time, I don’t recognize the noise I heard, I no longer know if birds still sing in the morning, whatever noise I heard, I’m sure that my eardrums have already burst, a noise that had pierced through to my brain, but it’s funny that I still recognize the sound of my own name, and this gives me hope, hope is a dangerous thing, they say that it is what thrusts people to madness, and when the visitor called my name, I did not know if I was dreaming, I lifted my head up and smiled, I was about to mention something about the weather, or our weight, whether we have gained or lost some, but I had forgotten what I was about to say as soon as she squeezed my palm, where the pulse lies, where the welt from the blade rested and she whispered: flee, flee and I will know what she wanted to happen, she wanted to sleep with me, I will not object, I will be even the one to usher her to bed, and I will feel her trembling, I will take off her clothes and she will do the same and we will begin our voyage, that’s how I see it, a voyage I will not object to, I will try not to think, I will let it be, she will come again tomorrow, my door will be open, I will not refuse, for I want our world to be filled with our children, the whole universe even, so that I wouldn’t feel lonely anymore, isn’t it right, Sandali, for that is her name, Sandali, she has neither parent nor sibling, neither home nor job, she is not bound to anything or anytime. Sandali, her name does not suit her, perhaps I needn’t give her a name, she is like a poem, a poem that does not have a name, if a person labels a poem a poem, it vanishes, it disappears like bubbles that can no longer be touched.

READ MORE…

Recipes in Translation: Traditional Southeast Asian Soups for New Mothers

May 18, 2017  |  in Food and Literature  |  by Dr. Marilyn P. Wong, Khanh-Hoa Nguyen, and Kristine Nguyen

Postpartum recipes have been passed down orally for generations in Asia. Now a multilingual cookbook is attempting to preserve them.

In many Asian cultures, new mothers are offered delicious dishes and nutritious soups after giving birth. The postpartum recipes fortify a new mother and ensure sufficient lactation for her newborn. These centuries-old traditions have been kept alive through orally sharing recipes and cooking for one another from one generation to the next. However, with growing assimilation of Western culture and a lack of documentation, this shared cultural knowledge may soon be lost.

Interested in the preservation of these recipes, in 2014 students who were a part of the Asian Pacific Islander Health Research Group (AAPIHRG) at UC Berkeley started a Postpartum Nutrition Folklore Project. We interviewed our mothers, grandmothers, and other relatives to document the recipes in their original languages and then translated them to English. Some of us asked our mothers or grandmothers to cook the dishes and soups in person so we could write down clearer instructions (and sample the delicious recipes!) Others conducted the interviews via phone calls and video chats. Most of us were bilingual so we did the English translation by ourselves and asked friends and family members to review our spelling and punctuation. Ultimately, we collected over thirty recipes from six different cultures—Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Hmong, Cambodian and Filipino—and published them as a multilingual cookbook titled From Mothers to Mothers: A Collection of Traditional Asian Postpartum Recipes.

READ MORE…