Posts filed under 'Argentina'

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

February 19, 2021  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Allison Braden, Chamini Kulathunga, and Eva Wissting

The latest news from Argentina, Sri Lanka, and Sweden!

This week, our writers bring you the latest news from Argentina, Sri Lanka, and Sweden. In Argentina, Betina González’s first novel to be translated into English, American Delirium, has been released; in Sri Lanka, renowned dramatist Asoka Handagama will premiere his new play in March; and in Sweden, the Swedish Arts Council has responded to the need for increased funding in the literary and culture sector. Read on to find out more! 

Allison Braden, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Argentina

On Tuesday, Argentine novelist Betina González made her English-language debut with the publication of American Delirium (Henry Holt and Co.). The book chronicles the chaos that ensues after a strange hallucinogen invades a fictional U.S. town, and the stories of three central characters—Beryl, Berenice, and Vik—diverge and collide in a narrative that plays with notions of utopia and dystopia. To kick off publicity events for the novel, bookstore Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C., hosted a virtual conversation between González and her translator, Heather Cleary.

Moderator Idra Novey, who is herself a novelist and award-winning translator, focused in part on issues of translation. González began writing the book, which is set in the U.S., while living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. González described how English served as a “ghost structure” behind her writing in Spanish. That “special Spanish,” as she called it, was also shaped in part by the various Spanish dialects and tones she encountered while living in the U.S.; incorporating those regional differences into the fabric of the narrative contributed to its hallucinogenic, dreamlike atmosphere. “The language,” she said, “needed to collaborate” with the plot.

The translation process began, Cleary explained, with close reading and a conversation with González about the three characters’ voices. Berenice and Vik’s sections are both written in the third-person, but the narration evinces subtle differences that reflect their respective personalities. Vik hails from an invented island in the Caribbean, which experienced first Spanish, then British colonization. (González conducted extensive research to shape his origins. In total, the book took about seven years to write.) To help capture González’s careful nuance, Cleary infused Vik’s sections with Briticisms, which hint at his home’s colonial history. (Vik, Cleary pointed out, was difficult to translate in part because he’s “kind of an asshole,” who is “as resistant on the page as he is in real life.”) READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

January 15, 2021  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Allison Braden, Carol Khoury, and David Boyd

The latest news from Argentina, Japan, and Palestine!

This week our writers bring you exciting news from Argentina, Japan, and Palestine! In Argentina, the legalization of abortion has been celebrated and supported by many, including renowned feminist writer Nora Domínguez; in Japan, leading women writers and their translators will be in conversation for the Japan Foundation New York, whilst translator Yukiko Konosu shared her recommended new reads from Japan, including Rin Usami; and in Palestine, four great new works of Palestine literature are soon to be published in English. Read on to find out more! 

Allison Braden, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Argentina 

Two days before 2020 slid into history and memory, an anxious crowd gathered outside Argentina’s Congress in Buenos Aires. They watched the Senate debate on big screens and the summer heat dissipated as day turned into night, Tuesday turned into Wednesday. Many—though not all—of those who stood outside wore green scarves, the symbol of a yearlong movement to legalize abortion in the historically conservative country. In the small hours of Wednesday morning, after a long and suspenseful Senate session, they found out that their work had paid off: Congress legalized voluntary abortion through the fourteenth week of pregnancy.

Several of the pro-choice activists who advocated for this major legislation were writers. The day before the senators took up the bill, a collection of Argentina’s most notable writers, including Claudia Piñeiro, Florencia Abbate, Agustina Bazterrica, and Gabriela Saidon, released a statement and video expressing their support. “The green wave puts an end to hypocrisies, inequalities, injustices and replaces a long dark violence with dignity,” they wrote. “Like the deep and living heartbeat of the sea, it instills in us a pulse to continue fighting.”

Nora Domínguez was among the writers who endorsed the statement. She’s one of three directors of an ambitious project to publish the history of Argentina’s literature through a feminist lens. The first of six volumes, En la intemperie: poéticas de la fragilidad y la revuelta (In the Open: Poetics of Fragility and Revolt) was published by Eduvim late last year, but it’s chronologically the last in the series, focusing on the period between 1990 and 2019. The work features a collection of analysis and criticism from Argentina’s leading feminist thinkers—part of the project’s larger effort to give form to “certain absences, not to build a counter-canon but rather to provoke detours, scandalous stops, fissures, divisions, and contradictions” in the existing canon. In a December interview, Domínguez confirmed that Argentina has experienced a boom in recent years of new voices in the country’s literature, not just women but trans writers and young people as well. This century’s feminism is a culmination of both feminist and literary genealogies. The work to interrogate and revise a patriarchal canon and the work to advocate for laws that respect women’s autonomy go hand in hand. READ MORE…

Weekly Updates from the Front Lines of World Literature

August 14, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Jacqueline Leung, Poupeh Missaghi, and Sarah Moses

The latest literary news from Hong Kong, Argentina, and Iran!

Whilst coronavirus remains a concern for countries around the world, our weekly dispatches are a testament that world literature continues to thrive, with our writers reporting on new literary journal initiatives, publishing fairs, audio books, and newly released novels. In Hong Kong, writers are advocating Cantonese literature and boldly responding to the ongoing protests by launching two new literary journals, Resonate and Hong Kong Protesting. Lovers of Argentine literature will be excited by the release of English audio books from the Centro Cultural Kirchner, featuring authors such as César Aira and Hebe Uhart, and available for free. In Iran, the literary community mourns the passing of prominent linguistic scholar Badr al-Zaman Qarib but has also celebrated the new release by the renowned novelist and Man Asian Literary Prize nominee Mahmoud Dowlatabadi. Read on to find out more! 

Jacqueline Leung, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong

Two weeks ago, University of Edinburgh student Andrew Yu tweeted that one of the journal reviewers of his academic paper claimed that the name of Hong Kong is inappropriately “foreign” and needs to be amended to appear alongside its Chinese equivalent (香港) and its Mandarin romanization (Xianggang). Despite its roots in British colonialism, “Hong Kong” has been used for at least 180 years and is a closer romanization of the city’s name in Cantonese, its local language. What the reviewer proposed is unnatural, but it is also reflective of the city’s larger struggles as it tries to maintain its own identity amid political pressure and the sweeping national security law.

There have been recent initiatives to better protect Hong Kong’s unique culture and literature. Launched in June, Resonate is the world’s first literary journal written completely in Cantonese, which is seen mainly as a spoken language and is rarely written out in formal or literary contexts. Featuring fiction and criticism, the journal also publishes articles about the language itself, debunking myths long believed by its speakers—like the idea that Cantonese was spoken during the Tang dynasty. In fact, it is a modern variety of Middle Chinese, used from the Northern and Southern dynasties to the Song dynasty (roughly, from around A.D. 600  to A.D. 1200). Mandarin and Shanghainese also developed from Middle Chinese.

Cha, Hong Kong’s English-language literary journal, has also initiated a new project amassing writing about the Hong Kong protests, recently stifled by mass arrests of pro-democracy figures and the disqualification of lawmakers and election hopefuls. Hong Kong Protesting is a growing collection of original and translated poetry, essays, criticism, and art from various contributors. In particular, several translations of works by Hong Kong poets are available, including poems by Cao Shuying (trans. Andrea Lingenfelter), Derek Chung (trans. Tammy Lai-Ming Ho), Liu Waitong (trans. Lucas Klein), and Jacky Yuen (trans. Nicky Admussen). Many of the works evoke the start of the movement last summer when two million people marched peacefully, and when violating incidents, such as the attacks on journalists and citizens, became more frequent, altering the city once and for all. READ MORE…

Weekly Updates from the Front Lines of World Literature

July 17, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Allison Braden, Eva Wissting, and Poupeh Missaghi

The latest literary news from Argentina, Sweden, and Iran!

This week, our writers bring you news from Argentina, Sweden, and Iran. In Argentina, book fairs have moved events online and well-known trans writer Camila Sosa Villada has spoken about the benefits of trans literature; in Sweden, newspapers have been publishing full-length novels as a daily series for Summer; and in Iran, a new book of letters by Abbas Kiarostami has faced publication rights controversy. Read on to find out more! 

Allison Braden, Co-Editor-at-Large, reporting from Argentina

This year, the 46th annual Buenos Aires Book Fair was postponed indefinitely. The spring gathering, predictably, had to adapt to limitations imposed by coronavirus, but the change of plans was nevertheless a huge loss to the booksellers and industry professionals who rely on the blockbuster event, which attracts upwards of 10,000 visitors over the course of the fair. However, Fundación El Libro, the organization that puts on the fair, opted to go a different route for its children’s book fair. That programming will be held virtually, beginning this coming Monday, July 20, and continuing through the end of the month. Organizers promise hundreds of digital activity opportunities for children and young adults, which may provide welcome relief to parents.

Even with the book fair on hold, other efforts to promote Argentine literature around the world continue. Programa Sur, one of the most robust programs of its kind in the Spanish-speaking world, was developed in 2016 to offer grants to incentivize small and medium publishers abroad to release Argentine books in translation. Since its inception, the program site boasts that “over 800 foreign publishers from 46 countries have applied for support in the translation of 1,060 works by more than 380 Argentine authors into 40 languages.” The program is accepting applications through September.

Those stuck at home in Argentina and abroad, looking to keep their finger on the pulse of literary news and views, may turn to news organization RED/ACCIÓN’s weekly newsletter, Sie7e Párrafos (“seven paragraphs”). The Tuesday newsletter features readings and commentary on literature and nonfiction books, as well as occasional updates on the publishing industry. One recent issue featured a short interview with trans literary star Camila Sosa Villada. Interviewer Javier Sinay asked what the opportunities are for trans literature and what trans literature can contribute to the world. She answers, in my translation, “What happens when writing runs counter to the established canon? A kind of rupture in the peace promised by the rules of good writing . . . Now, you have the opportunity to read something unexpected, about unknown worlds and knowledge you never imagined.” Her answer underscores why the postponed book fair is such a loss and why Programa Sur remains so important. READ MORE…

Weekly Updates from the Front Lines of World Literature

May 29, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Allison Braden, Andreea Scridon, Andrew Adair, and Josefina Massot

This week's latest news roundup from the United Kingdom, Argentina, and Mexico!

This week our writer’s bring you the latest news from the United Kingdom, Argentina, and Mexico. In the UK, Oxford Translation Day welcomed past Asymptote contributor Sophie Hughes to talk about her Booker-shortlisted translation of Fernanda Melchor’s Hurrican Season. In Argentina, the rising cases of COVID-19 have prompted the Fundación Filba to organize virtual classes with well-known Latin American writers. In Mexico, booksellers are finding innovative solutions to reach readers as the stores remain closed. Read on to find out more! 

Andreea Scridon, Assistant Editor, reporting from the United Kingdom

Every year, research center Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation hosts Oxford Translation Day, consisting of workshops, readings, and talks, as a prelude of sorts to the award of the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize on the June 13, at its home base of St. Anne’s College, Oxford.

Given this year’s unusual global situation, Oxford Translation Day is taking place online over the span of several weeks. We are particularly looking forward to Asymptote contributor Sophie Hughes’s talk on her Booker-shortlisted translation of Fernanda Melchor’s Hurricane Season (Fitzcarraldo Editions), which we’ve featured here and here, on June 13. Another event that seems particularly intriguing is poet and translator A.E. Stallings’s discussion of two contemporary Greek female poets, Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke and Kiki Dimoula, also on June 13. READ MORE…

What’s New in Translation: August 2018

August 9, 2018  |  in New in Translation, Reviews  |  by Ilker Hepkaner, Jacob Silkstone, Lara Norgaard, and Nestor Gomez

Find respite from the heat with these new reads.

From Icelandic landscapes to art history, August brings with it an exciting new selection of books. Whether you’re looking for a book to pass the hot summer days, or are in the market for inspired poetry, the Asymptote team has something for you in this new edition of What’s New in Translation. And if that’s not enough, head over to the Asymptote Book Club for fresh reads, delivered to your doorstep every month!

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Öræfi: The Wastelands by Ófeigur Sigurðsson, translated from the Icelandic by Lytton Smith, Deep Vellum, 2018

Reviewed by Jacob Silkstone, Assistant Managing Editor

One of the many epic stories retold in Ófeigur Sigurðsson’s Öræfi: The Wastelands (“that punctuation mark… both pushes words (and worlds) away from one another and means they’re roped together,” according to translator Lytton Smith) is the story of Öræfi itself. Formerly known as Hérað, the Province, a place in which “butter drips from every blade of grass,” it was devastated by the most destructive volcanic eruption in Iceland’s recorded history:

The chronicles record that one morning in 1362 Knappafjells glacier exploded and spewed over the Lómagnúpur sands and carried everything off into the sea, thirty fathoms deep… The Province was destroyed, all its people and creatures annihilated; no sheep or cattle survived, no creatures left alive anywhere… the corpses of people and animals washed up on beaches far and wide… the bodies were cooked and tender and the flesh so loose on the bones it fell apart.

READ MORE…

An Inconvenient Newspaper: Robert Cox and the Buenos Aires Herald

February 28, 2018  |  in Essays, Profile, Translations  |  by Josefina Licitra and Lara Norgaard

"I know what a country without journalism means, and it’s the most terrible thing you can think of.”

“An Inconvenient Newspaper” is an essay about the recent closure of the Buenos Aires Herald, a paper that wrote against the Argentine military dictatorship, in English, in the 1970s and 1980s. The Buenos Aires Herald closed in July, just as an Argentine indigenous rights activist disappeared. The full profile of Robert Cox, the director of the Herald, was published in a Portuguese translation in issue no. 133 of the Brazilian magazine Piauí, released in October 2017. This English translation is an abridged version of the original Spanish article by Josefina Licitra.

“Any news?” That’s how Robert Cox greets me. He says “hello” and “nice to meet you” with an affectionate kiss on the cheek. But in the following sentence he always probes for the unexpected, for the possibility of news. It’s 10 a.m. on a Thursday and Cox looks like he just woke up. His eyes are still sleepy and his white hair finger-combed.

“Not that I know of,” I reply.

Cox makes coffee in the kitchen and brings it to the living room: a pleasant space scattered with paintings, family photos, and other decorations. He lives with his wife, Maud Daverio, in Charleston—in the United States—but also keeps this old, elegant Buenos Aires apartment, which he visits every year. This is where he lived after getting married, in 1961. This is where his five children were born. This is where he lived when the Buenos Aires Herald, the English-language newspaper that he directed from 1968 to 1979—one of a kind in Latin America—became the Argentinian publication that spoke out about human rights violations during the last military dictatorship, at a time when no other media institution would. And this is the place that he had to leave when a series of threats—also directed against his wife and one of his children—forced his family into exile.

Cox looks through the voile curtains. Outside the window is a narrow street lined with the pompous buildings of the Recoleta neighborhood, one of the most European areas of Buenos Aires. “I don’t know what happened with Santiago Maldonado…” he says, and clicks his tongue with an audible tsk. “Still no news? Weird.”

Santiago Maldonado is—was?—an artisan who supported the struggle of radical indigenous groups that reclaim land in Patagonia. This past August 1st, after a protest that stopped traffic, he disappeared in the middle of a confrontation with the Gendarmería—border officers. Some say that the police arrested him and accidentally killed him through the use of excessive force. Others say that there is no evidence to show that the government was at fault—and to this day there still isn’t—but they also can’t come up with a different explanation for his disappearance. Since then, demands to find Maldonado alive—or to find him at all—have deepened the divisions between Argentina’s governing party and its opposition. While the government refers to Maldonado as an “artisan,” kirchneristas and left-wing parties call him a desaparecido—one of the “disappeared.”

That term, in Argentina, dredges up the history in which Robert Cox was involved.

READ MORE…

In Conversation: Daniella Gitlin on translating Rodolfo Walsh’s Operation Massacre

January 15, 2018  |  in Interviews  |  by Lara Norgaard

"Walsh is relevant for American readers now, even if they don’t necessarily understand the nitty-gritty of the political situation of his time."

One challenge of translation is finding a text that appeals to an audience separated geographically and culturally from the author. Finding a nonfiction text with that kind of currency is all the more difficult. The translator of nonfiction is faced with a text tied to local events and often steeped in a historical, social, and political context. Why should the average international reader care about nonfiction in translation? Today, Asymptote sits down with Daniella Gitlin, the translator of the famous 1957 Argentinian reported novel, Rodolfo Walsh’s Operación Masacre (Operation Massacre), previously excerpted in our Summer 2013 issue, to discuss her encounters with a masterpiece of nonfiction and outline the urgent relevance of a text six decades old. 

Lara Norgaard (LN): Tell me a bit about how you came to translate Operation Massacre.

Daniella Gitlin (DG): I spent the year after college in Buenos Aires working for a nonprofit, Poder Ciudadano, with a Princeton in Latin America Fellowship. I was back in Argentina for a visit and told my friends there that I was applying for the nonfiction writing program at Columbia. Before I left, my friend Dante gave me a copy of Operación Masacre with a dedication in it. He wrote, “Dani my dear, a little ‘Argentinian nonfiction’ will do you good. I hope you like it.” I took the book back with me. I had heard of Walsh, but I didn’t really know anything about him.

READ MORE…

Meet The Publisher: Antares Press’s Margarita Feliciano on Publishing from Spanish, French, and Indigenous Languages

October 11, 2017  |  in Publisher Profile  |  by Sarah Moses

I’m interested in bringing to the attention of readers in the world the fact that there are other languages—not known languages.

ANTARES Publishing House of Spanish Culture is a trilingual press located at York University’s Glendon Campus in Toronto, Canada. ANTARES aims to bring literary and scholarly works from the Spanish-speaking world to North American readers. With this in mind, the press publishes non-fiction, fiction, poetry, and theater either written in or translated from Spanish, English, and French. In recent years, ANTARES’s interests have expanded to include the literature of indigenous languages such as Quechua and Ojibwe. Asymptote’s Editor-at-Large for Argentina, Sarah Moses, met with director Margarita Feliciano to chat about ANTARES’s catalog and their commitment to publishing translations of works written in Spanish and indigenous languages.

Sarah Moses: How did ANTARES get started?

Margarita Feliciano: The press started in the year 2005, but officially we started to publish in the year 2006. I’ve been a professor at York University since 1969 and I’ve always taught literature. In 1989, I started to publish a magazine called Indigo—before Indigo the store; I didn’t have a chance to register it. The subtitle of the magazine was The Spanish/Canadian Presence in the Arts. Things were not done in translation but published in their original language—it could be Spanish, English, or French.

I was forced to retire in 2005 because at the time we had lost a strike and one of the requirements was mandatory retirement for people aged sixty-five. The law is now gone but I unfortunately fell in that category. So in view of that, I decided to create ANTARES—to continue to do what I was doing and at the same time keep me at university because in my life all I’ve done is either be a student or a teacher. So I wanted to continue my work.

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

July 28, 2017  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Cassie Lawrence, Layla Benitez-James, and Sarah Moses

Hot off the press—your handy guide to all the literary happenings in the UK, Spain, Argentina, and Peru!

We’re in the second half of the year and summer—or winter, depending on where you are located—is full of literary activities. From the announcement of the Man Booker Prize longlist and the release of a new book by a beloved Spanish poet to Argentinian bookselling events, Asymptote editors are telling it all!

Executive Assistant Cassie Lawrence reporting from the UK:

Two days ago, the Man Booker Prize longlist was released, comprising a list of literary heavyweights and two debut novelists. The most hyped title, perhaps—and the most expected one—is The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy’s first work of fiction in two decades. Chosen from 144 submissions, the longlist has 13 titles, often referred to as the “Man Booker Dozen.” Other authors on the longlist include Zadie Smith, Mohsin Hamid, Ali Smith and Colson Whitehead.

On Monday, July 17, the London Book Fair (LBF) recorded a webcast on “Creativity, Crafts and Careers in Literary Translation.” Three panelists—translator Frank Wynne, agent Rebecca Carter and consultant and editor Bill Swainson—joined acclaimed journalist, Rosie Goldsmith to speak on the opportunities and challenges in getting world literature translated. The webcast followed from a successful programme at LBF’s Literary Translation Centre last spring, and was funded by Arts Council England.

In other news, two-times Booker-winning publisher One World have paid a six-figure sum for a YA trilogy from US actor Jason Segel, reports The Bookseller. The first title, Otherworld, is due to be released on October 31 this year, and will center on a virtual reality game with dark consequences. Segal, known for his roles in films such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall and I Love You, Man has written the trilogy with his writing partner, Kirsten Miller. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

June 9, 2017  |  in Dispatches  |  by Julia Sherwood, Madeline Jones, and Sarah Moses

A trip around the literary world, from USA to Latin America to the Czech Republic.

The weekend is upon us—here’s a detailed look at the week that was by our editors-at-large. In the United States, Madeline Jones reports directly from the trenches of the Book Expo in New York City. A gathering of publishers, booksellers, agents, librarians, and authors, the event is the largest of its kind in North America. We also have Sarah Moses filling us in with tidings from Colombia and Argentina, and updates on the Bogotá39, a group of thirty-nine Latin American writers considered to be the finest of their generation. Finally, Julia Sherwood brings us some hot off the press literary news from the Czech Republic. Settle in and get reading.

Madeline Jones, Editor-at-Large, reports from the United States:

Last week in New York City, Book Expo (formerly Book Expo America) set up shop at the famously-disliked Javits Center on western edge of Midtown Manhattan. Publishers, literary agencies, scouts, booksellers, and readers gathered for discussions about the future of publishing, meetings about foreign rights deals, publicity and media “speed-dating” sessions, and more. Authors and editors spoke about their latest books for audiences of industry insiders, and lines trailed from various publisher booths for galley signings.

Though the floor was noticeably quieter than previous years, and certainly nothing compared to the busy hub of foreign rights negotiations that the London and Frankfurt book fairs are, Asymptote readers will be pleased to hear that multiple panel discussions and presentations were dedicated to foreign publishers, the viability of selling translations in the U.S., and indie books (which more often tend to be translations than major trade publishers’ books). READ MORE…

Thirst is the Force of Gravity: Ferreira Gullar’s “Dirty Poem” in Review

July 29, 2015  |  in Reviews  |  by Bruna Dantas Lobato

"The poem’s necessity makes me bitter."

Much has already been said about exile. Losing a country or losing a home is “like death but without death’s ultimate mercy,” “a kind of ripping apart,” “a condition of terminal loss.” Ferreira Gullar wrote Dirty Poem (newly translated by Leland Guyer for New Directions) in 1975 in Buenos Aires, while in political exile from the Brazilian dictatorship. Like the author himself, the speaker of Dirty Poem imagines his return home, an attempt to recover the São Luís do Maranhão of his childhood.

The opening stanzas of this 80-page poem are filled with gaiety and fond memories of youth in the northeast region of Brazil. But just a few pages later, the speaker “preaches subversion of political order” and is banished to Argentina. In a fine translation from the Portuguese, Leland Guyer captures the richness of language of Gullar’s poetry—from local idioms to the language of displacement. The book culminates in saudade, alienation, and decay. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: “The First” by Mariana Graciano

October 14, 2014  |  in Translations  |  by Mariana Graciano

Short fiction translated by Kadiri Vaquer

 An unpredictable cloud of smoke forced him to move around constantly. He had nowhere to stand to avoid it. That day, grandpa mentioned how every January 1st, the wind blew in all four directions. The rest of the family watched him start the fire for the barbecue and his theory, once again, was proven.

It was a thick and humid beginning of the year. After eating, the family rested under the ombu tree like animals waiting for the storm. When the sky turned black, the women hurried to take everything inside: cups, chairs and the clothes hanging on the line.  Then it began to rain, just like that, a curtain of water, hard and even. READ MORE…

July Issue Spotlight: Sergio Chejfec’s “The Witness”

August 7, 2014  |  in Essays, Reviews  |  by Eva Richter and Patty Nash

A close look at Sergio Chejfec's masterful not-quite fiction, non-quite essay, "The Witness"

Patty: The phrase “of-the-moment” is so annoyingly trite, but for lack of a better expression, Sergio Chejfec is perhaps one of today’s most of-the-moment writers, and the short fiction/systematic essay-musing “The Witness”—translated by Steve Dolph and published in Asymptote’s July issue as part of our Latin American feature—proves beyond a shadow of a doubt just why that is.

They say, more or less, that anyone who’s made the mistake of leaving can’t make the mistake of returning. READ MORE…