Posts filed under 'Indiegogo campaign'

An Interview with Nicky Harman from Paper Republic

December 16, 2015  |  in Interviews  |  by Lee Yew Leong

Read Paper Republic has been publishing one new Chinese fiction per week since June 2015. Our editor-in-chief talks with Nicky Harman about it.

Yesterday’s Translation Tuesday article was jointly published with Paper Republic, a collective of literary translators promoting new Chinese fiction in translation. Their new initiative, Read Paper Republic, is for readers who wonder what new Chinese fiction in English translation has to offer and would like to dip a toe in the water. Between June 18, 2015 and June 16, 2016, Read Paper Republic is publishing a complete free-to-view short story (or essay or poem) by a contemporary Chinese writer, one per week for a year, 52 in total. Readers can browse them for free, on their computer, tablet or phone.

Our editor-in-chief, Lee Yew Leong, conducted a Skype interview with Nicky Harman, one of the founders of this new initiative, to find out more.

Lee Yew Leong: How did the idea for Read Paper Republic come about?

Nicky Harman: Well, we as translators are aware that our own passion for Chinese lit and our work doesn’t always match the general reading public’s interest so we decided on a project that would (a) bring a wide selection of contemporary work to readers, and (b) have a finite term, i.e. it wouldn’t go on forever so we could feel able to put all our energies into it. And we chose short stories because although they are an under-appreciated form in the West, they are nice and short (by definition!) and complete and Chinese writers write very good ones.

LYL: Who is “we” in this case?

NH: We’re Helen Wang and myself in London, and Eric Abrahamsen and Dave Haysom in Beijing. Eric, of course, founded Paper Republic, but we’ve worked as a collective for some time, and were all keen to revitalise the site. Dave is editor of Pathlight and was a brilliant addition to our team because of his editing skills.

LYL: All of you are also united by one thing: you’ve either contributed to Asymptote or taken part in an Asymptote event!

NH: Indeed. Asymptote has been a great inspiration to translators, and very deserving of the London Book Fair Award for International Literary Translation Initiative it got this year. READ MORE…

Would you like more Asymptote in 2015?

December 22, 2014  |  in News  |  by Lee Yew Leong

Then support our Indiegogo Campaign!

We’ll be taking a break from now till the end of the year, but we hope you’ll check out our Indiegogo campaign in the meantime, if you haven’t already. Thanks to 67 kind souls, we’ve collected $6,000 in less than 3 weeks! But we’ll need more of you to step forward, if we are to operate beyond January 2015. Will you help us continue our mission?

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In return for your support, we’ll give away literary care packages, designer AsympTOTEs, and even tickets to upcoming anniversary events (including this one in New York, featuring three of the most beloved translators du jour: Edith Grossman, Damion Searls and Susan Bernofsky).

But, best of all, if we reach our target, we’ll be able to deliver more great international content in 2015, hold a second edition of our translation contest, organize more events, unveil an educational arm, and bring you even more installments of our recently launched podcast!

So that we’ll be able to carry on, give some love to Asymptote today.

Your great support means a lot to us. Happy holidays from us to you!
—The entire Asymptote team

p.s. Did you know? Reif Larsen and Forrest Gander are fans of Asymptote too!

p.p.s. Questions about the campaign? Send them to editors@asymptotejournal.com. We’d be more than happy to hear from you!