Posts filed under 'el salvador'

Translation Tuesday: “Zinc” by Róger Lindo

March 28, 2023  |  in Translations  |  by Matthew Byrne

The rodent will be captivated, as I will, by the hailstones lashing against the roof.

Salvadoran poet Róger Lindo tr. Matthew Byrne sets a tempestuous scene: a night storm both ethereal and mundane that compels all, from the dormouse to the soldier, to collective awe. This Translation Tuesday, we invite you to bear witness to ‘the nocturnal splendor’.

“Zinc”

I have only hubris and kindness.

–G. Ungaretti

Beastly storm.
A dormouse peers out halfway.
The rodent will be captivated, as I will,
by the hailstones
lashing against the roof.
The city mnemonist is here,
a soldier yearning,
drawing near, intrigued by
the nocturnal splendor.
I’ve been a solitary worker bee
in the afternoon,
but I’ve also sung
plowing the soil.
When the rain eases off,
we’re alone with the crickets.

Translated from the Spanish by Matthew Byrne.

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

January 27, 2023  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Carol Khoury, José García Escobar, and MARGENTO

Literary News from Palestine, Central America, Romania, and Spain!

Join us this week with a new batch of literary dispatches covering a new Palestinian literary and culture magazine, the 2023 PEN Open Book Award longlist, and more. From a Palestinian literary festival to the birthday celebration for the “national poet” of Romania, read on to learn more!

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

A first is always exciting, always an event; in fact, it’s called “a first” even if a second never comes. And when there is a second time, it’s an opportunity to celebrate and to remember the first.

This week the Palestinian literary community is anticipating both a first and a second.

The Palestinian literary scene is witnessing the birth of Fikra Magazine, an online Palestinian cultural and literary magazine – writing and art by and for Palestinians. According to partners and co-founders Aisha and Kevin, Fikra is dedicated to “high-quality content that doesn’t conform to stereotypes and old-fashioned ideas about Palestine. It’s original, it’s inspiring, it’s bold.” What is exciting about this new publication is that every piece is professionally translated from Arabic to English—or vice versa. Since “Palestinians in the Diaspora often don’t read Arabic as their mother tongue,” the creators say in their promotional materials, “we want our writers to become part and parcel of the international writing-guild as well.” In Fikra, the creators promise, “you’ll find Palestinian writers and artists from all corners of the word – from Gaza, the West-Bank, East-Jerusalem, 48, and the diaspora.”

READ MORE…

Weekly Updates from the Front Lines of World Literature

October 2, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Jovanka Kalaba, Nestor Gomez, and Vivian Szu-Chin Chih

The latest news from Taiwan, Serbia, and El Salvador!

This week our writers bring you the latest literary news from Taiwan, Serbia, and El Salvador! In Taiwan, renowned writer Huang Chun-ming has brought out his latest novel and Chinese novelist Yan Lianke’s new essay compilation, Hers, has just been published. In Serbia, the annual Shakespeare festival, Šekspir Festival, has begun, and the Reading Balkans 2021 programme has launched in collaboration between Goga Publishing House, PEN Centre, and others. In El Salvador, a new blog run by Nelson Alonson, Una Verdad Sin Alfabeto, and publishing house Editorial Kalina have run online debates about Salvadoran writing and diaspora literature. Read on to find out more! 

Vivian Szu-Chin Chih, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Taiwan

The autumn equinox has brought drizzling rain to cool Taiwan down from the previous summer heat. During the final quarter of 2020, while hoping our global readers will all stay safe and healthy, several literary and movie events are taking place in Taiwan. With online screenings and live discussions being streamed, it might be the best time for an easy access to Taiwan’s recent cultural events, no mater where you are.

The renowned Taiwanese novelist and playwright, Huang Chun-ming’s (黃春明, 1935-) latest novel (Hsiu-Chin, the Girl who Always Smiles,《秀琴，這個愛笑的女孩》) was just published by Unitas Magazine’s publishing house. The story centers around a village girl from northeastern Taiwan entering the film industry accidentally in the 1960s, when Taiwanese-language films were at their peak. Huang’s novella was featured in our past issue, with the translator Howard Goldblatt’s moving account of his long-term friendship with Huang. At the same time, the Chinese novelist Yan Lianke’s (閻連科, 1958-) essay compilation, Hers (Tamen,《她們》), was recently published by Rye Field Publishing Company in Taiwan, unprecedentedly featuring stories of women the novelist encountered, inside and outside of his own family. Perhaps most unorthodox is the publication from Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBTQ+) Hotline Association of their eight-year project that interviewed seventeen lesbians over fifty-five years old in Taiwan, to be published by Locus Publishing Company in October. This groundbreaking book on the life experiences of “lao-la” (「老拉」) in Taiwan, literally meaning old lesbians, is not only about their personal memories and struggles of being lesbians in the conservative Taiwanese society before the 1990s, but also a literary historical review of Taiwan’s gender equality and LGBTQ+ movements since the 1950s.

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

April 10, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Jacqueline Leung, Julia Sherwood, and Nestor Gomez

This week's latest news from El Salvador, Czech Republic, and Hong Kong!

This week, our writers bring you news from El Salvador, where the country’s last remaining indigenous language, Náhuat, has been celebrated; the Czech Republic, where coronavirus is having a huge impact on the book market; and Hong Kong, where organizations such as PEN are using digital initiatives to promote literature during this period of social distancing. Read on to find out more! 

Nestor Gomez, Editor-at-Large, reporting from El Salvador:

Since 2017, Salvadorans have celebrated the National Day of the Náhuat Language. The holiday is in accordance with other international celebrations of ancestral languages as proclaimed by the United Nations in 1999. The National Day of the Náhuat Language is part of an ongoing effort over the past several years to revitalize Náhuat language and culture. Náhuat is the last existing indigenous language of El Salvador; its other indigenous languages of Lenca and Cacaopera/Kakawira are extinct.

El Salvador has had a deeply traumatic history concerning its indigenous population. Its most infamous historical event was in 1932, La Matanza, in which the Salvadoran government suppressed a peasant rebellion and killed over ten thousand protesters, many of them Pipil, the people of Náhuat culture and language. Because of events like La Matanza, the indigenous populations opted to forget their culture and languages, and instead learned and spoke only Spanish, in fear of being revealed as indigenous and executed.

In the past decade, two documentaries have come out focusing on the lives of indigenous people currently living in the few remaining towns where Náhuat is still spoken: the first documentary was released in 2013 and directed by Sergio Sibrían; the second documentary was released in 2015 and directed by Roberto Kofman. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

February 14, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Barbara Halla, Nestor Gomez, and Shelly Bhoil

This week's latest news from Tibet, El Salvador, and France!

This week our writers bring you the latest news from Tibet, El Salvador, and France. At Indiana University, a new Tibetan translation of Elie Wiesel’s Night sparks discussion; in El Salvador, the contemporary poet Vladimir Amaya gives an interview about his poetic decisions; in France, the accusations of sexual assault in the literary establishment ignite urgent discussion about French law and the #MeToo movement. Read on to find out more! 

Shelly Bhoil, Editor-at-Large, reporting from United States

There was a powerful coming together of two exile stories—the Tibetan and Jewish—at the Central Eurasian Studies Department of Indiana University through a panel discussion—The Tibetan Translation of Elie Wiesel’s Night—on January 29. The Nobel Peace Prize-winner Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night (1960), discussed by the distinguished Jewish literature scholar Alvin Rosenfeld in the panel, has been translated into more than thirty languages, its Tibetan version being the most recent. Wiesel was a Holocaust survivor upon whom the Dalai Lama conferred the International Campaign for Tibet’s Light of Truth award in 2005.

Wiesel’s Night is the first work to be translated into Tibetan under New York-based Latse Library’s 108 translations project and made available for free here. According to Latse’s statistics, “In the first two weeks alone [since the book’s publication in Oct 2019], there were 3,300 downloads of the ebook and PDF, and countless more instances of sharing and forwarding on social media and email.” Gendun Rabsel, the Tibetan language expert, spoke in the panel about the welcoming reception of Night among Tibetan readers. Pema Bhum, Night’s translator and a leading Tibetan intellectual, discussed his meeting with Wiesel and the challenges and choices in translating this work into Tibetan, including his consultations with the celebrated historian on Tibet, Elliot Sperling, and with IU Jewish Studies faculty. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

May 25, 2018  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by José García Escobar, Olufunke Ogundimu, and Rachael Pennington

International literary news for an international audience.

Another week has flown by and we’re back again with the most exciting news in world literature! This time our editors focus on Central America, Germany, and Spain. 

José García Escobar, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Central America: 

Sadly, Centroamérica has been officially put on hold this year. After five years of unflagging work, the festival Centroamérica Cuenta, hosted each year across Nicaragua, has become the most significant and important literary gathering of the region, annually welcoming writers, journalists, filmmakers, editors, and translators from over thirty countries around the world. This year’s CC was scheduled to unfold May 21-25. However, since Nicaragua’s tense political situation that has taken the lives of so many civilians shows no signs of slowing down, the Centroamérica Cuenta committee has decided to suspend the festival until further notice.

READ MORE…