Posts filed under 'indigenous languages'

Languages have their secrets: A Conversation with Mardonio Carballo

October 16, 2024  |  in Interviews  |  by René Esaú Sánchez

...poets are simply those who pay attention, observing what happens, and find a way to tell it…

Poet, journalist, editor, actor, broadcaster, producer, translator, and Nahua activist Mardonio Carballo recently published La canción de las flores, a book that brings together forty-nine poems printed on paper made from corn leaves and vine, published simultaneously in Nahuatl-Spanish, Nahuatl-English, and Nahuatl-French. In this interview, originally held in Spanish, I spoke with Mardonio Carballo about the experience of writing in Spanish and Nahuatl, the relation of memory and language, and the role of translation in preserving an indigenous language.

René Esaú Sánchez (RES): I was reading some of the poems you wrote in La Canción de las Flores, and many of them are quite synesthetic. So I wanted to ask: what smells, sensations, or tastes do you experience when writing poetry?

Mardonio Carballo (MC): This latest collection is atypical. I had resisted for a long time the theme of nature—this tradition of “Flor y Canto” that is always associated with Nahuatl poetry. To a certain extent, it annoyed me. On this occasion, unlike my previous collections, which have been more combative, expressing Mexico’s painful reality, I chose to step away from that theme of pain, blood, and death. In another book, I asked myself how much the dead weigh, for instance. But I realized the same thing happened to me years ago when making documentaries. I no longer wanted to focus on journalists, activists, and the same topics. So, I embarked on a journey to film a series of documentaries called We Insist on Hope. It turned out that all those defending land, water, and forests were either threatened with death or had been harmed in some way, which led me to a reflection: the one that guides this collection.

Just as there are no languages without people to speak them, there are no territories without flowers. That premise is what nourishes this collection, and yes, the physical book—the way it was designed—makes it seem like the typography changes, like everything is in motion. I believe it pays homage to the flowers, birds, and trees. After the whole COVID situation, I was left with the feeling that we were suddenly writing poems that were too profound, sometimes inaccessible and incomprehensible to most people. So in this collection, I sought the ease of understanding. In fact, one of the lines that deeply inspires me is from a Charles Simic poem: “I write so that dogs can understand me.” That line struck me. Because at some point, we start using grandiose words that make us seem special, fantastic, intellectual… but to me, poets are simply those who pay attention, observing what happens, and find a way to tell it. READ MORE…

Translation as Disorder in Carlos Fonseca’s Austral

August 23, 2023  |  in Reviews  |  by Alan Mendoza Sosa

. . . disorder plagues the opening pages of the book, always in tight connection to translation.

Austral by Carlos Fonseca, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023

“What is the social impact of translation?” is a question that often buzzes in my ear like a hungry mosquito, especially when I read translated books, and even more commonly when I try to teach colloquial expressions in Spanish to my non-Hispanic friends—more precisely, Spanish from Mexico City, my hometown. Immediately, attempts at clear definitions become convoluted, uncertain, ambiguous—in a word, atropellados (literally “ran over,” an adjective that refers to stumbling over words). I sound more or less like this: 

“Take ‘chido/chida/chide’ [CHEE-duh/-da/-de] (adj.). It can technically mean ‘cool,’ but also ‘good,’ ‘agreeable,’  or ‘comfortable’ (for things and places and preceded by the auxiliary verb ‘estar’); it also means ‘nice-kind-laidback-easygoing-friendly’ (for someone who meets all and every one of these attributes and with the verb ‘ser’); or ‘ok, no problem,’  and ‘thank you’ (in informal social interactions with a close friend but not necessarily an intimate one and, crucially, with an upbeat intonation)…but if you want to make things easier for you, just remember that in any colloquial situation where you would say ‘cool’ in English or the closest equivalent in your mother tongue, you can say ‘chido.’ Don’t forget to adjust the last letter for the grammatical gender of the noun, or the preferred gender of the person you are referring to. Recently, non-binary gender is expressed with an ‘e,’ but some people prefer ‘ex,’ or the feminine (a), or do not have any strong preference. When in doubt, ask.”

Similarly involved and protracted explanations often result in simpering faces and jocose efforts by my bravest friends to try out the words I share. More common, and more fun, is when friends also share their favorite colloquial untranslatables in their mother tongues, eliciting everyone’s excited perplexity and marvel at the abundance of meaning and the frustrating difficulties of carrying that meaning across languages and cultures. When we try to explain these terms, it is as though their translation abruptly hits the brakes on our language, pushing us into linguistic confusion with the inertia from the sudden interruption. In other words, translation begets disorder, upsetting the comfortable and normally thoughtless flow of everyday language. This sensation—which emerged in me after my recurrent attempts at translating colloquialisms—appears more subtly and robustly in the 2023 novel Austral by Carlos Fonseca and its translation by Megan McDowell. Disorder, Austral suggests, lies at the heart of translation’s social potential, as it makes translation (its exercise and its experience) essential for radical change.

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Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

June 9, 2023  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Bridget Peak, Wambua Muindi, and Xiao Yue Shan

The latest from Kenya, Canada, and Oman!

In this week of literary news, our editors on the ground are bringing stories of triumph, mourning, and commemoration. In Kenya and Ghana, readers mourn the loss of pioneering feminist author Ama Ata Aidoo; in Canada, a Quebec initiative supports readers in finding more books by Indigenous writers; and in Oman, a lauded author brings home the prestigious International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Read on to find out more!

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

The end of May seemed to position itself as a direct communication to geo-literary production history; on May 27, a bilingual anthology of East African short stories, The Heart is A Bastard, launched at the Goethe Institut Library, Nairobi. Edited by Elias Mutani and Zukiswa Wanner, the collection is a result from the Kenyan writing workshop under the auspices of the Univerity of East Anglia International Chair in Creative Writing. The inaugural chair for Africa, Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangaremba, expressed her delight over the launch, which includes stories in English and Swahili translations. Some of the emerging writers featured in the anthology include Gladwell Pamba—from whose story the anthology’s title is taken, Fatma Shafii, Nyasili Atwetwe of Writers Space Africa Kenya, Charlie Muhumuza, Noella Moshi, and Sia Chami. The anthology not only holds space for these writers but also represents the creative breadth of the region, while simultaneously embedding a language politics given its bilingual character.

However, this joy was dislodged by the unfortunate news of a writer’s death. On May 31, Ama Ata Aidoo, the Ghanaian author of Our Sister Killjoy (1977), a pioneering feminist novel, died at the age of 81. As such, Africa is mourning; Ghana is mourning and Kenya, too, is mourning the novelist, playwright, short story writer, and committed radical feminist, who wrote to assert the agency of African women within literary history. As reverential eulogies have been paraded across the world, the Kenyan literary community joined in the outpouring of grief in a country where her influence not only transcends her writing, but is also compounded by a teaching stint she had at the then named Kenyatta College, now Kenyatta University, as well as the literary contributions of her Kenyan-born daughter, Kinna Likimani. Where Austin Bukenya, a leading East African scholar of English and literature, for instance, dubbed her “Queen of African literature”, Mukoma wa Ngugi, the author of Nairobi Heat and son to Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, sees her as a “pillar” without which “the African literary tradition wobbles”. While Joyce Nyairo, an academic and a cultural analyst, references the short story “Something To Talk About On The Way To The Funeral” as praise of her storytelling genius, Yvonne Owuor lamented, in proper proverbial fashion: “A great, and giant tree that sheltered many beings has fallen”. Moreover, her writings, which among others, include The Dilemma of a Ghost (1965), No Sweetness Here (1969), Anowa (1970), and Changes (1991) cut across the genres to show the depth of her imaginative oeuvre and demonstrate the commitment—in different but related ways—to the African woman’s cause, through literature and in society. Rest in Power Mama. READ MORE…

Contemporary Indigenous Poetry: Xun Betan on Tsotsil, Turkeys, and Aguardiente

June 17, 2020  |  in Essays  |  by Shyal Bhandari

. . . when he writes, it is often with an audience in mind, namely, the future generations of Tsotsil speakers.

Tsotsil is a Mayan language spoken by the indigenous Tsotsil Maya people in the Mexican state of Chiapas and it is in danger of extinction. When writer and translator Shyal Bhandari went to the state for several months to investigate contemporary indigenous poetry, he quickly discovered the poet Xun Betan, who has been fighting hard to keep the language alive in literature. In this essay, Bhandari recounts his meeting with Xun Betan and introduces the pivotal work he has been doing through his writing, publishing, and workshops.

Over the few months that I was in San Cristóbal de las Casas in Mexico, I heard the name Xun Betan brought up plenty of times whenever I asked about contemporary indigenous poetry. “Tienes que hablar con él”—they told me I had to talk with him and that he is involved in many interesting projects, including a poetry workshop for young Tsotsil Maya writers that he runs at his house in the city. They informed me that he is a “unique individual” (in the best sense of the term), almost always to be found wearing traditionally embroidered shirts and his trademark sombrero.

So, when I saw a man dressed exactly like that, smiling and nodding along at the launch event for an indigenous poetry anthology, I thought, “Could that be Xun?” The spokesperson from the editorial Espejo Somos gave him a shout-out, confirming my hunch. At the end of the event, I swiftly approached him about the possibility of sitting down to talk and, to my delight, he suggested coffee the following morning. Anxious to make a good first impression, I arrived punctually, against my nature. I found a well-lit table in the centre of the café and ordered a cappuccino made with pinole (ground-up corn). By the time I had finished my coffee, it was 11:20 a.m. and Xun was yet to show. I was hardly surprised. So, it had to be that at the exact moment I resigned myself to the sobering thought that he had completely forgotten about our meeting, he walked through the door. Naturally, I told him I had only just arrived, hoping he wouldn’t pay much attention to the empty coffee cup beside me. It turned out that we have friends in common. I don’t care if it’s a cliché—the world is a very small place indeed. 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…

Printed Matter: On Enriqueta Lunez’s New Moon

March 12, 2020  |  in Reviews  |  by Paul Worley

Ambiguity across the trilingual text is a way of asserting the sovereignty of Indigenous languages in dialogue with English and Spanish.

New Moon/Luna Nueva/Yuninal Jme’tik by Enriqueta Lunez, translated from the Tsotsil by Clare Sullivan, Ugly Duckling Presse, 2019

Although there is an increasingly large corpus of Latin American Indigenous literature in translation, these translations seldom make it into print. While the digital medium offers advantages—global circulation, the ability to include audio and video of spoken word performances, the capacity to cheaply reproduce multilingual volumes—print remains a vital avenue for the publication of these works as in many circles it still possesses a prestige that digital lacks. Within Indigenous literary movements themselves, authors tend to set print publication of their works as an important goal, even as they clearly value digital publication as an important and effective tool that facilitates their ability to reach a global audience. Most Indigenous literatures that do make it into printed translations do so in anthologies such as Miguel León-Portilla and Earl Shorris’s In the Language of Kings (2002), Allison Hedge Coke’s Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas, or Nicolás Huet Bautista and Sean Sell’s Chiapas Maya Awakening: Contemporary Poems and Short Stories (2017).

Published in December 2019, Clare Sullivan’s translation of Tsotsil Enriqueta Lunez’s work in New Moon/Luna Nueva/Yuninal Jme’tik, is perhaps only the third single-author volume of an Indigenous writer from Latin American to be published in English translation, the other two being Sullivan’s translation of Zapotec poet Natalia Toledo, The Black Flower and Other Zapotec Poems (2015), and Nathan C. Henne’s rendering of the Kaqchikel writer Luis de Lión’s Time Commences in Xibalbá (2012). Although the publication of these works over the last decade demonstrates how little Indigenous literature has been translated and how much more work there is to be done in the area, it also shows that interest in reading these authors in translation is slowly gathering steam, as Wendy Call’s translation of selected poems by the Zapotec poet Irma Pineda, In the Belly of the Night and other Poems, is due out later this year from Pluralia. In other words, New Moon speaks to the increasing prominence of these voices in the global literary market.

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Bringing the World Into the Classroom: The Winter 2020 Educator’s Guide

March 4, 2020  |  in Asymptote for Educators  |  by Barbara Thimm

One focus of these lesson plans is that students engage in deep thinking and writing, another is to connect reading with their own experience.

Often, our love for literature is catalyzed by a journey taken within a classroom. No matter where and how we teach literature, it is always an opportunity for our students to engage with their world in a new way. The Asymptote Educator’s Guide is a resource we’ve developed to facilitate more of these expeditions, bringing important, diverse works from our issues into the classroom by way of a curated and detailed guide for teachers. In the following essay, Barbara Thimm, Assistant Director of Asymptote’s Educational Arm, discusses the immense potentials and applications of the Winter 2020 Educator’s Guide.

Jerome Bruner, the famous cognitive psychologist and one of the most important contributors to the theory of education, likened reading to a journey into new terrains without the help of a map: “As our readers read, as they begin to construct a virtual text of their own, it is as if they are embarking on a journey without maps.“ Yet that emerging virtual text is shaped by our previous reading experiences, “based on older journeys already taken . . .” Eventually, that journey becomes a thing of its own, a generator of new maps and thus an extension of the reader’s world, an addition to her repository of maps.

World literatures are particularly apt in expanding their readers’ collections of maps, that is, to enrich their reading of the world, not only literally in the sense that they raise awareness of writing and thinking in parts of the world more likely to be “known” via externalized news reports, if at all. Through their defined difference, world literatures confront us with names, places, and narrative patterns that are farther removed from the “older journeys already taken,” and thus extend the routes we can travel in the future. It follows that world literature can be made uniquely productive in encouraging our students to expand their horizons by adding to the variety and reach of their reading maps.

Asymptote’s mission, “to unlock the literary treasures of the world,” thus becomes a rich resource for a variety of classrooms in the English language arts, not least because the vast majority of the pieces published here are contemporaneous—that is, they reflect the thinking, storytelling, and creativity of artists writing in our present moment. Often, these texts are not part of a canon, nor can they be found in print outside their countries of origin. What they have in common is that someone who speaks both English and the language of the original artist found them worthy of her or his attention and effort, and brought them forward so that we may connect their ideas, experiences, and visions of the world to ours. Bringing these voices to the attention of our students is an ever more urgent endeavor in a time where nationalist interests and perspectives crowd out more unifying visions.  READ MORE…

“Ch’ayonel almost means boxer, in Kaqchikel”: Translating Eduardo Halfon Into a Mayan Language

February 24, 2020  |  in Interviews  |  by José García Escobar

Eduardo’s people and my people, Jews and Mayas, have been historically persecuted. . . So, it wasn’t that hard to get all the nuances of his story.

The work of Eduardo Halfon has been translated into English, French, Italian, Dutch, German, and many other languages. However, this year, thanks to the work of educator and translator Raxche’ Rodríguez, his most celebrated short story, and the one from which his entire bibliography sprouts out, El boxeador polaco (The Polish Boxer) has found its way to Maya readers. Entitled Ri Aj Polo’n Ch’ayonel, Halfon’s semi-autobiographical story about a grandfather telling his grandson about the origin of the fading tattoo on his arm was published in August by Editorial Maya’ Wuj.

The result is a tiny yet gorgeous pocket version, which includes Eduardo’s original story in Spanish and Raxche’’s translation into Kaqchikel—one of the twenty-two Mayan languages recognized as official languages. With a limited run of five hundred copies, Ri Aj Polo’n Ch’ayonel is a little gem that’s now part of the impressive body of work of Eduardo Halfon, recently shortlisted for the prestigious Neustadt Prize.

I got together with Raxche’ in late November. He said he was in a hurry—his bookstore and printing and publishing house Maya’ Wuj was working double-time to finish the books commissioned for 2020’s first trimester. But after realizing the grinding of all the machines inside would keep us from hearing each other, he suggested doing the interview somewhere else.

We went out, walked past a mortuary, a park, a couple of bakeries, the national conservatoire, and found our way inside a gloomy restaurant playing jazz.

“Just so you know, I thought it’d be easy,” Raxche’ said, holding his head. “The translation; I thought it’d be easy. It was everything but,” he said, and he chuckled.

“How did this book come to be?” I said, as a waitress, as swift as a bird, laid two glasses of rosa de Jamaica on our table.

“FILGUA,” Raxche’ said. “FILGUA and Humberto Ak’abal.” READ MORE…

Narrative Repatriation: Inari Sámi Folklore: Stories from Aanaar in Review

April 1, 2019  |  in Reviews  |  by Paul M. Worley

Frandy’s edition openly rebels against the moment when these stories were first recorded.

Inari Sámi Folklore: Stories from Aanaar by August V. Koskimies and Toivo I. Itkonen, revised by Lea Laitinen, and edited and translated by Tim Frandy, University of Wisconsin Press, 2019

Whatever the cosmopolitan politics of many people living in cities like London, New York, or Paris, the majority of museums in such places continue to struggle with the colonizing narratives forwarded not only by the layout of the physical space of the museum—a prime example being the room dedicated solely to Egypt, separate from the rest of the African continent—but also by the fact that many objects within these collections were stolen, looted, or otherwise removed from the communities that produced them.

Should these objects be returned or, in an argument that many see as dripping with colonial paternalism, are they indeed “safer” under the protection of Western institutions? One only need think of the ongoing controversy surrounding the so-called “Elgin” Marbles and their possible repatriation, or any number of recent developments concerning Native American peoples in the United States requesting the return of sacred objects, to understand how such objects touch on themes like intellectual and cultural sovereignty in the twenty-first century. The “Elgin” Marbles may have inspired Keats’s meditation on truth and beauty, but how would these same marbles appear, at a distance, to a poet writing from Greece during the Romantic period or in the age of Brexit? How would the nature of the marbles’ famed “truth” and “beauty” appear to someone who understood them as a piece of cultural heritage that had been looted for the express benefit of a cosmopolitan other? What would the return, or so-called repatriation, of such objects mean not only for those who have been robbed of such items, but for the descendants of those who stole them in the first place?

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Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

February 8, 2019  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Charlie Ng, Kelsey Woodburn, Lou Sarabadzic, and Paul M. Worley

Join as us we celebrate indigenous writers, intercultural connection, and the importance of linguistic diversity.

This week, we return with three dispatches exploring multicultural and multilingual connection. We begin with a reflection on the work of Humberto Ak’abal, an influential Indigenous poet who wrote in both K’iche’ Maya and Spanish. We also explore the multilayered dialogue between China and New York in the Hong Kong literary scene, and get an exciting firsthand account of the recent Creative Multilingualism conference in the UK.

 Paul Worley and Kelsey Woodburn, Editors-at-Large, reporting from Guatemala

As declared by the United Nations, 2019 is the International Year of Indigenous Languages. According to their website, of the 7,000 languages currently spoken on the planet, over 2,500 are currently endangered. In Mexico, the rest of Latin America, and around the world, many hope this global recognition will lead to wider acceptance of Indigenous languages, as well as to increased opportunities for their oral and written expression.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

January 4, 2019  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Janani Ganesan and Lee Yew Leong

Expired copyrights, new literature, and the difficulties faced by translated literature feature in this week's updates.

As we welcome the New Year in, join our Editor-in-Chief, Yew Leong, and one of our Assistant Managing Editors, Janani, as they review the latest in world translation news. From the trials and tribulations faced by indigenous languages to new literary journals and non-mainstream literature, there’s plenty to catch up on!

Lee Yew Leong, Editor-in-Chief:

Though it was actually in 2016 that the UNESCO declared this year, 2019, to be the Year of Indigenous Languages, recent unhappy events have revealed how of the moment this designation has proven to be. A 7-year-old Guatemalan girl who was unable to communicate how sick she was died while in U.S. Border Patrol Custody—only one of several thousands of undocumented immigrants who speak an indigenous language like Zapotec, Mixtec, Triqui, Chatino, Mixe, Raramuri, Purepecha, or one of many Mayan languages, according to The Washington Post. Jair Bolsonaro, the new Brazilian president who has made insulting comparisons of indigenous communities living in protected lands to “animals in zoos,” wasted no time in undermining their rights within hours of taking office and tweeted ominously about “integrating” these citizens. On a brighter note, Canada will likely be more multilingual this year as the Trudeau administration looks set to enforce the Indigenous Languages Act before the Canadian election this year. The act will not only “recognize the use of Indigenous languages as a ‘fundamental right,’ but also standardize them,” thereby assisting their development across communities. Keen to explore literary works from some of these languages? With poems from indigenous languages ranging from Anishinaabemowin to Cree, Asymptote’s Fall 2016 Special Feature will be your perfect gateway to literature by First Nations writers.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

November 16, 2018  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Barbara Halla, Julia Sherwood, Kelsey Woodburn, and Paul M. Worley

The latest in world literature can be found here in Asymptote's weekly roundup!

This week, our weekly dispatches take you to Poland, France, Mexico and Guatemala for the latest in literary prizes, and literary projects, featuring social media, and indigenous poets in translation.

Julia Sherwood, Editor-At-Large, reporting from Poland:

Hot on the heels of a US book tour for her International Man Booker Prize-winning novel Flights (translated by Jennifer Croft), the indefatigable Olga Tokarczuk appeared at a series of events to mark the UK publication of her newest book. The “existential thriller” Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones and published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, is fast garnering rave reviews, and London audiences had an opportunity for a Q&A with the author combined with a screening of Spoor, the book’s film adaptation. There was also a lively conversation between Olga Tokarczuk and writer and chair of the International Man Booker judges, Lisa Appignanesi, at the Southbank Centre. Meanwhile, Flights has been shortlisted for the National Book Award for translation as well as for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, the shortlist of which includes another book by a Polish author, Żanna Słoniowska’s The House with a Stained Glass Window (also translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones).

Anyone who may have been afraid to tackle the classics of Polish literature will no longer have any excuse now that Adam Mickiewicz’s epic poem Pan Tadeusz has appeared in a new and highly readable English version. “I undertook this translation out of the conviction that Pan Tadeusz is fundamentally an accessible poem for twenty-first-century non-Polish readers. It’s witty, lyrical, ironic, nostalgic, in ways that seem to me quite transparent and universal,” writes multi-award-winning translator Bill Johnston in his introduction. At a book launch at the Polish Hearth Club in London on October 8, Johnston compared notes with poet and translator George Szirtes, who introduced his translation of the Hungarian classic The Tragedy of Man by Imre Madách.

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From the Headbanger, the Metalhead, All the Way to the Failed Hip-Hopper: An Interview with Wingston González

August 6, 2018  |  in Interviews  |  by José García Escobar

For me, poetry is the metadata of life.

If I were to describe Wingston González as a poet, I’d say he’s an unusual poet. Scratch that. To be more precise, the fractured aesthetics, the cadence, the triplets, the vertiginous narrative found in Wingston’s poetry, can only be summoned by the unusual artistic upbringing he had. Born in Livingston, brought up on Garífuna culture, traditional Guatemalan education, classical literature, and hip-hop music, Wingston stands as an undeniably original and musical wordsmith—utterly unique within the tradition of Guatemalan literature.

He is also an entrancing performer and a fascinating poet that keeps changing and augmenting his cultural and intellectual heritage.

Early July, Wingston and I got together at Casa Cervantes in downtown Guatemala City to talk about his creative process. Of course, we effortlessly drifted towards other topics. We ended up talking about music—like we often do—and ignoring the mathematical structure on which language is based. Wingston’s poetry, I might argue, has almost an allergic reaction to the formulaic configuration of Spanish. And it is thanks to that free will and unhindered flow that his verses explode and reach out with utter casualness.  

Wingston argued that as time passes, he is less worried about fulfilling what is expected of him as a poet. The narrative fabric of his poetry is often based on everyday life and he admits he thrives on capturing that everydayness, either through the plot, though mostly through the words.

During the translation process of the Four Poems, featured in Asymptote’s Summer 2018 issue, he repeatedly confessed that while writing them he was concerned people might not understand what he was trying to say.

“I wanted to play with the language, but I was unsure if it made any sense,” he insisted, and months later, in Casa Cervantes, he repeated that line.

The result—and his poetry in general—though intellectual and highly literary, is also tinged with elements of the quotidian plus the type of slang and idiolects found in Livingston, in Guatemala. From references to Garífuna culture, musical narrative, unorthodox rhythmic pattern, ritualistic cadence, inventive spelling, stutters, theatrical delivery, and—as he calls them—a set of useless facts, these Four Poems show many of the poet’s tricks, antics, and cultural inheritance. His unrestrained flow truly showcases the vitality he wants to impregnate in his poetry.

José García Escobar (JGE): Your poems featured in Asymptote’s July issue, I think, are a perfect example of the type of aesthetics you used at the beginning of your career. In them, there is a lot of experimentation, musicality, unusual rhythm and unorthodox narration—things you rarely use now. How has your approach towards poetry changed over the years?

Wingston González (WG): I don’t know if my approach has changed, but the process definitely has. Naturally, when you start writing, you’re not entirely aware of what you’re doing. The act of writing becomes automatic. That happened to me. But right now I’m not as worried as I was in the past with the limitations of language. I’m more concerned with the limitations of human nature. I think that with my poetry I’m getting closer to how I speak every day. That is my intention now, to use everyday language. Even if these poems, the ones featured in Asymptote’s Summer 2018 issue, are pretty experimental, I remember I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to communicate what I was trying to say. I thought, “What am I doing with my ax!” I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to reach the reader. Now I’m not as concerned about this.

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His Defiance: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and the Struggle for an Independent African Literature

June 14, 2018  |  in Essays  |  by Olufunke Ogundimu

These words cannot just exist in a vacuum; they provoke reactions that demand political change.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o was born 5 January, 1938 in Limuru, Kenya and is a perennial favourite for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Ngũgĩ is at the forefront of a war of resistance regarding the use of language that has spanned many decades. He advocates that African writers write in their mother tongues, because he understands how integral language is to a culture and its identity. Since African literature is mostly written in languages of the minority, the language of the colonizers, Ngũgĩ asserts that this choice stifles the imagination of Africans and their propensity to be creative.

Nearly fifty years ago, Ngũgĩ wrote his first novel, Weep Not, Child (1964), the first written in English by an Eastern African. Ngaahika Ndeenda (1977), translated as I Will Marry When I Want, was co-written with Ngũgĩ wa Mirii. It is a play that depicts the injustices and excesses of post-colonial Kenya. It was acted by “non-intellectuals” in an open-air theater at the Kamirithu Educational and Cultural Center, Limuru. Ngũgĩ’s Gikuyu play sought to bring the theatre closer to the masses and encourage the audience to interact with the play. The play appealed to a wide audience and, because of the resultant reaction by people, the Kenyan government threw Ngũgĩ in prison for a year.

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