Posts filed under 'indigenous literature'

Linnea Axelsson’s Ædnan and Sámi literature in Translation

December 12, 2024  |  in Essays  |  by Linnea Gradin

Ædnan marks . . . a truth-seeking and reparational literature that is becoming part of a global vernacular.

Translation is a give and take—whether translating poetry or history, the questions of how and what are determined by the mode. In the following essay, Linnea Gradin discusses Linnea Axelsson’s Ædnan and its translation by Saskia Vogel, an epic poem detailing Sweden’s colonial history in the Sápmi region, the dislocation and cultural erasure of the Sámi, and the effects thereof upon culture and lineages. In an astute and personal analysis, Gradin calls for Sweden to reckon with its past.

In October 2024, the twenty-five finalists were announced for The National Book Award, an award spotlighting some of the most groundbreaking literature of the year and one of the biggest accolades in the English publishing scene. Amongst the five chosen finalists in the Translated Literature category was Linnea Axelsson’s Ædnan, an epic poem originally published in Swedish and Northern Sámi in 2018, now in Saskia Vogel’s translation.

Following two Sámi families over the course of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, Ædnan explores the dislocation and cultural erasure of the Sámi, traditionally semi-nomadic reindeer keepers who live in Sápmi, a region that spans “from the forest snow to / the windswept shore” in the north of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and parts of Russia. At the outset of the novel, we meet Ber-Joná, Ristin, and their sons Aslat and Nila at Lake Gobmejávri, close to the point where Sweden, Finland, and Norway meet. They are moving their reindeer herd across a familiar landscape, guided by a knowledge passed down through the generations:

We heard
heartbeats in the ground

Faint
beneath the inherited
migration paths

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

February 16, 2024  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Andriana Hamas, and Thuy Dinh

Dispatches from the Philippines, Bulgaria, and the Vietnamese Diaspora!

This week, our editors report on (attempts) at elucidation in the humanities and the cruelties of historic expatriation; the instating of Living National Treasures in the form of indigenous practitioners and their singular crafts; and a word that is meant to sum up a year. 

Thuy Dinh, Editor-at-Large, reporting on the Vietnamese Diaspora

The National Museum of Immigration History in Paris, France is currently offering a sobering exhibition on the history of Indochinese workers-soldiers, called les lính thợ or les công binh. As colonized subjects, twenty thousand men from Indochina—i.e., Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia—were brought to France at the onset of World War II to help with the war effort. Aside from a small percentage of educated volunteers who wished to escape the colony’s lack of social advancement, the majority, ranging from ages 18 to 30, was forcibly recruited from the poor peasantry to work in France’s defense industry.

Besides the exhibit, recollections by surviving workers have been compiled in recent years by various sources, such as the photographic essay “The Forced Oblivion” by Alejandra Arévalo, the graphic memoir “Les Lính Thợ: Immigrés de force, les travailleurs indochinois en France 1939-1952” (2017) by Pierre Daum and Clément Baloup, the film Công Binh, la longue nuit indochinoise (2013) by Lê Lâm, and the Vietnamese-French monograph, Những người lính thợ – Les travailleurs indochinois requis by Liêm Khê Luguern (2010).

When Germany invaded France in June 1940, the Indochinese workers were evacuated to the free zone in Southern France, where they worked in forestry and pioneered the rice-growing industry in the Camargue region. Both state-run and private companies employed these workers, but salaries were either paid to the French government, or distributed to the workers at rates significantly below those paid to locals. When Germany invaded the free zone in 1942, the workers were conscripted by German occupation troops to work in weapon factories. Besides harrowing working conditions, the men suffered physical and mental trauma due to prolonged exile and mistreatment by their superiors. READ MORE…

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…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

May 26, 2023  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Areeb Ahmad, Eva Wissting, and MARGENTO

Literary news from India, Sweden, France, and Belgium!

This week, our editors are bringing some fascinating news from their respective regions: the controversy surrounding a new prize for translated literature; the newest additions to the Swedish Academy (which adds two extra voices to the future electors of the Nobel Prize for Literature); and the latest visual art exhibitions and programmes that study the intersection between image and text. Read on to find out more!

Areeb Ahmad, Editor-at-Large, reporting from India

Earlier in May, the winner of the inaugural edition of the Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation was announced to be Musharraf Ali Farooqi, for his translation of Siddique Alam’s The Kettledrum and Other Stories from the Urdu. The book will be published next year by Open Letter, and an excerpt is available now on Words Without Borders. The prize, however, has had its fair share of controversy over the last few weeks regarding another author, Nandini Krishnan, who had appeared twice on the shortlist. According to her, the prize had confidentially informed her that she was chosen as the winner for her translation of Charu Nivedita’s Raasa Leela from the Tamil and then asked for more excerpts; upon receiving the text, however, they then withdrew the win, citing “reputational risk and potential liability.” Krishnan in turn withdrew both of her books from consideration after revealing the incident, and the prize eventually released a statement; the announcement of the winner was then postponed from early April to mid-May.

Zubaan, a small feminist press that only publishes women, recently released The Keepers of Knowledge: Writings from Mizoram, edited by Hmingthanzuali and Mary Vanlalthanpuii—the fourth entry in a series of anthologies that seek to highlight work from Northeastern states of India, which are often neglected from the mainstream. The project is in collaboration with the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, and the four anthologies so far have featured writing in English and in translation—poetry, prose, essays—as well as visual art. It is significant in collating various indigenous literatures and making them available to a wider audience, going far beyond the limits of an archive. The fifth entry, We Come from Mist: Writings from Meghalaya, edited by Janice Pariat, is currently in the works and expected to be out in a few months. Zubaan has also consistently championed Indian women writers in translation, and two other notable recent releases were Andhar Bil by Kalyani Thakur Charal, translated from the Bengali by Ajit Biswas, and The Stomach that Chewed Hunger and Other Stories, edited by Bama and translated from the Tamil by Ahana Lakshmi. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

February 10, 2023  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Eva Wissting, Jiaoyang Li, and Wambua Muindi

The latest from China, Sweden, and Kenya!

This week, our editors-at-large report on recent science fiction adaptations in China, the Sámi National Day in Sweden, and the passing of literary icons in both East Africa and China. From a revived book festival to the runner-up of the Safal-Cornell Kiswahili Prize, read on to learn more!

Jiaoyang Li, Editor-at-Large, reporting for China

Liu Cixin’s Hugo Award-winning novel Three Bodies was recently adapted into a TV series and streamed more than 3 million times in a week on Tencent Video, making it the most popular TV series in China. In addition to the live action, Bilibili, the largest animation website in China, also launched an animated series of the novel.

Although we must recognize it as a milestone in Chinese science fiction literature for IP adaptation, there is one thing to question: Why is it always Three Bodies? There are plenty of other wonderful sci-fi collections written by female Chinese writers needing our attention. For example, New York-based bilingual sci-fi writer Mu Ming’s fiction collection 宛转环 (The Serpentine Band), an excerpt of which was published by Clarkesworld Magazine in 2021, will be fully released in Chinese by One Way Books in 2023. 

READ MORE…

Di Antara Akses dan Penolakan / In Between Access and Refusal: A Conversation with Khairani Barokka

January 5, 2023  |  in Interviews  |  by Alton Melvar M Dapanas

. . . the more people are made to forget the names of our relatives who are flora, fauna, sea, earth, and sky.

Much has been said about Khairani Barokka’s wide-ranging, multidisciplinary body of work, spanning literature—spoken word poetry, dystopian fiction, scholarly texts—and media—textual, visual, performance. In the journal Research in Drama Education, she is an academic exploring “the limits of access and the framing of disabled performers from non-Western backgrounds in Western contexts.” According to the Journal of Postcolonial Writing, however, she is a poet of “ecocritical agenda advancing environment justice against deforestation, the loss of biodiversity, pollution, further revaluing indigeneity to the more-than-human.” 

In this interview, I asked Barokka about Modern Poetry in Translation, the London-based magazine where she serves as editor; her movement between genres; and translating from the languages of her homeland, Indonesia—including BISINDO or Indonesian Sign Language. 

Alton Melvar M Dapanas (AMMD): In your Catapult essay “The Case Against Italicizing ‘Foreign’ Words,” you made a case for maintaining an “active ethos of not italicizing supposedly foreign words,” with the hope that those in the publishing industry would follow suit. Can you speak more on how publications in the North Atlantic, and even Anglophone ones within the Global South, perpetuate a myth of “cultural purity” through linguistic gatekeeping? 

Khairani Barokka (KB): It’s been really heartening to receive the kind responses people and publications have had to that article over the past two years, and it even caused Massachusetts Review to change their house style, which was very encouraging. It’s the best feeling when colleagues say that they’ve changed the minds of editors by sending them the piece, which I hope has saved the significant amount of time we writers can spend arguing these points. 

I think the perception of certain words or names as ‘foreign’ does have to do with some publications’ regulations of house style, in which the word ‘foreign’ is not put in quotation marks, i.e., ‘Be careful with foreign words.’ And there have been some people who respond positively to my article, but still don’t put ‘foreign’ in quotation marks, when those quotation marks say a lot about gatekeeping. The ‘Other’ is fixed in many imaginations, which is interesting when you work in a country like the United Kingdom—where names and words come from so many corners of the globe, yet foreignising them is still de rigueur in many minds. Someone can be part of British society, and their name can still be regarded as ‘foreign,’ even if they’re a British citizen or born here (and of course, we can get into the hierarchies of bureaucracy and migration status!).

This has much to do with a certain ‘mythical English reader,’ which is usually assumed to be white, middle class, and monoglot; colleagues like Anton Hur have really been pushing back against this. Why can’t we, as supposed outsiders, be the idealised English reader for translations? Why isn’t the responsibility of a translation tied back to the linguistic communities it’s translated from, many members of which shouldn’t be forced to make literature ‘understandable’ to a very narrow demographic? The more we recognise these dynamics, the more we can unpack and minimise colonial tendencies in the literary arts. God knows it was assumed we as Indonesian children knew all the references in translated Enid Blyton books, for instance. It’s about cultural dominance, and the assumptions that go with that. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

September 23, 2022  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Andriana Hamas, and Carol Khoury

Literary dispatches from the Philippines, Bulgaria, and Palestine!

This week, our editors on the ground report on the loss of a pivotal figure in the indigenous literature of the Philippines, the Palestinian Book Fair held amidst the politics of occupation, and the Autumn Salon of the Arts in Plovdiv. Read on to find out more.

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

The Philippine literary community mourns the passing of Higaonon Manobo novelist, poet, and translator Telesforo S ‘T.S.’ Sungkit, Jr. Sir Jun, as we fondly call him, also wrote as Anijun Mudan Udan, and his work represented the voice of the Higaonon, one of the eighteen ethnolinguistic indigenous peoples groups collectively known as Lumad, original inhabitants of the southern Philippine supraregional island Mindanao.

Writing in and translating from four languages, Higaonon (sometimes referred to as Binukid), Cebuano Binisayâ, (Tagalog-based) Filipino, and English, Sir Jun received fellowships from the 2005 IYAS National Writers Workshop (De La Salle University—Bienvenido N Santos Creative Writing Centre) and the 12th Iligan National Writers Workshop (Mindanao State University-IIT and Mindanao Creative Writers Group). His first novel, Batbat hi Udan [Story of Udan], came out in 2009 and was considered as the first epic novel from Bukidnon, his home province. In 2007, he won the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Writers Prize for another novel Mga Gapnod sa Kamad-an [Driftwood on Dry Land] first serialised in Bisaya Magasin and later, self-translated into the English under the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House in 2013. Just this year, a translation of this novel from the Binisayâ into the Filipino secured the Rolando Tinio Translators Prize for the novel category.

Sir Jun’s third novel Ang Agalon sa mga Balod [The Lord of the Waves] bagged another NCCA Writers Prize in 2013, and is forthcoming from the University of the Philippines Press as Panginoon ng mga Alon—self-translated into the Filipino. (An excerpt is available from Likhaan: The Journal of Contemporary Philippine Literature.) In 2014, another novel Mga Tigmo sa Balagbatbat [Balagbatbat’s Riddles] received a National Book Development Board grant. In most of his short stories and novels, the structure veers away from the generic Western plot, being instead influenced by the nanangen oral storytelling ingrained to the Higaonon people and other Lumad. Other works of his can be read in Kabisdak: Cebuano Literary Lighthouse and BukidnonNews.net, where he once served as literary editor. (You can read his well-anthologised poem “I, Higaonon” from Australia-based Cordite Poetry Review here.) READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

March 13, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Daniel Persia, Paul M. Worley, and Shelly Bhoil

This week’s literary news from Tibet, California, and Brazil!

This week saw huge events to mark International Women’s Day around the world with its theme this year “Let’s all be each for equal.” Our writers are bringing news this week too of celebrations of underrepresented voices who, through their literature, translations, and discussions also strive for equality: a weeklong Instagram Takeover sharing the work of seven Tibetan women; an international symposium of Indigenous writers in San Diego; and two important forthcoming translations of Brazilian voices. Read on to find out more!  

Shelly Bhoil, Editor-at-Large for Tibet, reporting from Brazil

There is a slow but sure arrival of women to the Tibetan literary scene, evident in the takeover of High Peaks Pure Earth’s Instagram by seven Tibetan women, one each day, beginning February 24, the first day of Losar, the Tibetan New Year. 

In the cavalcade of visual stories, Asymptote contributor Chime Lama threw poetry exercises with shapes and games. A peek-a-book at her concrete poetry collection makes one anticipate it! Tenzin Dickie, the editor of Treasury of Lives, brought Tibetan humor and wisdom with snippets from her forthcoming family memoir—“if you don’t control your appetite even your knees are part of your stomach” or “a bucketful of vomit for a handful of food.” 

Beijing-based Tsering Woeser’s resistant rootedness in her inner exile is telling from the Dalai Lama’s photo, banned in China, at her Losar altar. She showed a view from her apartment window, where a blizzard had occasioned her poem “But It Was“. Kaysang shared the view of Dharamsala from her office space, calling it “Exile Home, The Only Home I’ve Ever Known”. She also left a heartfelt note on sustainable gratitude. Gratitude is something always becoming on Tsering Wangmo Dhompa for her late mother, whose photo she carries wherever she goes. In a work in progress, which Tsering shared, the discerning woman resists “the man who was uncertain of being loved” because “At best, he saw me as the best / of the worst number.” 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.

READ MORE…

A Blazoned Book of Language: Poems from the Edge of Extinction in Review

December 11, 2019  |  in Reviews  |  by Sarah Moore

The poets in this collection are intensely alert to their struggle, focusing on their work on the language's vulnerability and change.

I am beginning to write in our language,
but it is difficult.

Only the elders speak our words,
and they are forgetting.

So begins “C’etsesen” (“The Poet”), written in Ahtna, an indigenous language of Alaska, by John Elvis Smercer. In 1980, there were about one hundred and twenty speakers of Ahtna. At the time of this poem’s publication in 2011, there were about twenty. Today only about a dozen fluent speakers remain. Smercer’s lines reveal his urgent concern with the disappearance of his language and the weight of his task in preventing the language from slipping away. It is a race against time, between generations, for the young to learn the language before the old leave, taking the words with them.

Chris McCabe, editor of the anthology Poems From the Edge of Extinction, has equally set out on such a task: to collect, record, and preserve poems from multiple endangered languages. The anthology grew out of the Endangered Poetry Project, launched at the National Library, at London’s Southbank Centre, in 2017. The project seeks submissions from the public of any poem in an endangered language in order to build an archive and record of these poems for future generations. Of the world’s seven thousand spoken languages, over half are endangered. By the end of this century, experts estimate that these will have disappeared, with no living speakers remaining. Language activism has been growing since the early 2000s, and the United Nations declared 2019 the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL 2019) to raise global awareness of the consequences of the endangerment of indigenous languages. McCabe’s anthology, published to coincide with IYIL 2019, contains fifty poems, each in a different endangered language (as identified by UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger), presented in the original alongside an English translation; the result is an urgent and illuminating collection encompassing linguistics, sociology, politics, criticism, and philosophy that, in its totality, represents a manifesto of resistance.

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“A Rebirth Moment”: Evelyn Flores and Emelihter Kihleng on Editing Indigenous Literatures From Micronesia

April 24, 2019  |  in Interviews  |  by Marek Maj

Our writing is often not for a Western audience, and many of us are writing for ourselves, to express who we are as Indigenous peoples.

Next week, University of Hawaii Press will publish a ground-breaking anthology, Indigenous Literatures from Micronesia, which, for the first time ever, will bring together works—short stories, poems, essays, chants, and play excerpts—by Indigenous Micronesian authors. Some of the basic facts about this project are truly astonishing: the anthology includes one hundred pieces by over seventy authors, nine out of the thirteen basic Micronesian language groups are represented (Palauan, Chamorro, Chuukese, I-Kiribati, Kosraean, Marshallese, Nauruan, Pohnpeian, and Yapese), and it covers the entire Micronesian region—over two thousand islands spread across almost three million square miles of the Pacific Ocean. Micronesian literature has been excluded by academia, and, despite its long history, remains unknown outside of the region. As 2019 is the official UNESCO Year of Indigenous Languages, this anthology is an especially timely and necessary addition to the landscape of world literature. Asymptote contributor Marek Maj spoke with the editors, Dr. Evelyn Flores and Dr. Emelihter Kihleng—who began working on the anthology over ten years ago—about the process of putting together such an unprecedented collection and about the history, present, and future of Indigenous Micronesian literatures.

The anthology is the first of the “New Oceania Literary Series,” which, under the general editorship of Dr. Craig Santos Perez, aims to create anthologies of Pacific literature that address important themes and feature a diverse, multilingual, and intergenerational selection of Pacific authors. Dr. Santos Perez has said he hopes these anthologies will be inspiring and empowering for Pacific Islanders, as well as educational for non-Pacific audiences, and that he hopes these books will circulate both in classrooms and in the community. The next anthology will focus on Pacific Literature and the environment, eco-Justice, and climate change. Future anthologies will spotlight food, LGBTQ identity and experiences, science fiction and futurism, and more.

Marek Maj (MM): First of all, congratulations on the publication of Indigenous Literatures from Micronesia. How it does it feel that it will now finally be out in the world?

Evelyn Flores (EF): My immediate response?—Huge relief!—it’s done!
Then the deep joy rolls in—joy that we’re making a difference, trying to carve out a niche for voices from our region, doing our part to challenge a gross miscalculation of our abilities and our productive force.

There’s deep satisfaction that we’ve taken yet another step to clear the way for our children so they can see themselves walking upright in yet another book. All of us who’ve been invisible in published creative work know the deep awe we’ve experienced when we stumble upon ourselves in books, film, dance—it’s a rebirthing moment for us—realizing all the time we were there but excluded. Readers will see this moment of realization and protest enacted in several of the pieces, in Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner’s “History Project,” for instance, and in Anne Perez Hattori’s “Forefathers,” and Isebong M. Asang’s “Language with An Attitude.” READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

March 22, 2019  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Charlie Ng, Paul M. Worley, and Scott Weintraub

From the contemporary to the ancient, this week's roundup of literary news covers Argentina, Latin America, and Hong Kong.

This week, we’re taking a look at the precise and haunting work of a thrilling young Argentinian writer, celebrating and revelling in Latin American Indigenous literatures, and queuing up for a veritable mélange of literary and artistic events in the international hub of Hong Kong. It’s been a pretty good month.

Scott Weintraub, Editor-at-Large for Chile, reporting from Buenos Aires and Berlin:

On January 1, 2019, the New York Times reviewed Megan McDowell’s powerful translation of Argentine writer Samanta Schweblin’s book of short stories, Mouthful of Birds (originally titled Pájaros en la boca). In this review, the Times reveals what fans of contemporary Latin American fiction have known for years: that Schweblin’s haunting, claustrophobic writing is fascinating and addictive. Admittedly, Schweblin had previously received ample praise from critics in both the Spanish-speaking and Anglophone world. Among other accolades, we might consider: in 2010, the British magazine Granta named her a top young Spanish-language writer; Schweblin is a winner of the prestigious Juan Rulfo short story prize; she appeared on the Bogotá 39 list (2017), which lauded the top 39 Spanish-language authors under 40 years of age. READ MORE…

On Translating Indigenous Languages

June 7, 2018  |  in Essays  |  by Paul Worley

The translator bears a particular kind of ethical responsibility towards the text, the poet, and poet’s community.

Perhaps it goes without saying, but in 2018 translating Indigenous literatures in the Américas from Indigenous languages and/or Spanish is a political act. Even prior to now, at dinner parties and other settings for droll conversation in the United States, people have often perked up when I mention that I study Mesoamerican languages and cultures. With an interest typically grounded in lost civilizations, ancient mysteries, and, occasionally, UFOs, they usually then follow up with an inquiry as to why, if I study dead languages, I didn’t opt to study Latin, ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew instead. When I assert that no, Maya languages such as Yucatec and Tsotsil are far from dead, many people refuse to believe it and are more than happy to contest the point.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

June 1, 2018  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Kelsey Woodburn, Norman Erikson, Paul Worley, and Sarah Moses

Our weekly roundup of literary news brings us to Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, and Indonesia.

June is upon us and we are settling in for some summer reading. Join us as we catch up with our international correspondents about the literary happenings around the world. This week brings us the latest on indigenous literature from Colombia and Mexico, book fairs in Argentina, and new artistic endeavors in Indonesia!

Paul Worley and Kelsey Woodburn, Editors at Large, reporting from Colombia and Mexico:

From April 25 to 29 in Bogotá, Colombia, indigenous writers and scholars and critics of indigenous literatures from throughout the Américas came together in the 5th Continental Intercultural Encounter of Amerindian Literatures (EILA). The theme for this iteration of the bi-annual conference was “Indigenous Writing, Extractivism, and Bird Songs.” The centering of these concerns reflects a turn in the field of Indigenous literatures towards recognizing indigenous ways of writing that take place beyond Latin script, as well as ongoing ecological concerns that are at the heart of a good deal of indigenous literatures and Indigenous activism. In addition to literary readings and panels held at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, writers and critics presented to the general public at Bogotá’s International Book Festival (FILBO), and indigenous poets gave a reading in the town of Guatavita, home to a lake sacred to the Muisca people. Among the writers in attendance were (K’iche’) Humberto Ak’abal, (Yucatec) Jorge Cocom Pech, (Wayuu) Vito Apüshana, (Wayuu) Estercilla Simanca, (Wayuu) Vicenta Siosi, and (Yanakuna) Fredy Chicangana.

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