Posts filed under 'literary canon'

What’s New in Translation: May 2024

May 13, 2024  |  in New in Translation, Reviews  |  by Danielle Pieratti and Sarah Gear

New titles from Italy and Colombia!

In a fecund month of new translations, our editors select two phenomenal titles: a collection of the later poems by the acclaimed Eugenio Montale, and an intimate epistolary fiction leading readers to a seldom-seen region of Colombia. 

Late Montale – New York Review Books

Late Montale by Eugenio Montale, translated from the Italian by George Bradley, New York Review Books, 2024

Review by Danielle Pieratti, Poetry Editor

“The world exists,” declared Eugenio Montale in the poem “Wind and Flags” from his first book, Cuttlefish Bones, published in 1925 (translated by Jonathan Galassi). Given the frank, existential agnosticism that governs the poet’s later work, it feels a little like whiplash to return to this otherwise characteristically subtle poem after reading Late Montale. Translated from the Italian by George Bradley, this collection comprises Montale’s published and unpublished poems from the second half of his life, offering glimpses of the poet first in the period of his Nobel win and later, as an increasingly reflective and skeptical widower. Yet ultimately, Montale seems to arrive where he began. “Unarguably / something must exist,” he writes in an unpublished poem at the end of his life,

But with [regard to] this,
science, philosophy, theology (red or black)
have all misfired.

If this isn’t faith,
O men of the altar or the microscope,
then go f. yourselves.

Given that these works range from the 1960s to his death in 1981, the fact that Montale circles back to this revelation bears noting. While his underlying ironies and symbolism persist, there’s a definitive “shift from formality to intimacy and self-revelation,” Bradley writes in his introduction, which “parallels the course of twentieth century poetry as a whole”. In poems taken from Satura, first published eight years after the 1963 death of his wife Drusilla Tanzi, Montale retains his characteristic imagery and density, but his focus has drifted from the tangible nature symbolism of his earlier works to more abstract questions of grief befitting an older poet experiencing loss. Many of the poems speak to memory and to individuals from Montale’s past, including several from two long sequences addressed to Tanzi. Others allude frequently to Montale’s former life as an opera singer. Indeed, the tension between then and now pervades Late Montale, and the poet’s apparent scorn for the passing of time lends a hint of tragedy to poems increasingly pensive and raw. “We were two lives too young to be old but too old to feel we were young,” he writes to Tanzi in “Lake Sorapis, 40 Years Ago”, which ends:

That’s when we learned what aging is.
Nothing to do with time, it’s something that tells us,
that makes us tell ourselves: “Here we are,
it’s a miracle and won’t come again.” By comparison
youth is the most contemptible of illusions.

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Reckoning With the Idea of the Canon: An Interview with Robin Myers, Part II

July 7, 2022  |  in Interviews  |  by Alan Mendoza Sosa

The tradition becomes this tidal flow that is always acting on us . . .

In the second part of a three-part series, Editor-at-Large Alan Mendoza Sosa continues his conversation with poet and translator Robin Myers. In this installment, they continue their discussion on multiplicity in translation, touching on canons in Spanish literature, conceptual writing, and collaboration. Read part one of the interview here.

Alan Mendoza Sosa (AM): Have you felt that commercial interests interfere with what gets published and translated?

Robin Myers (RM): Always, although I find it hard to express exactly how, beyond my own intuitions and observations, you know? Definitely. I sense that certain authors become “hot” authors, and so other writers will get grouped together or hyped in response to them or in comparison to them. And of course authors in translation are very susceptible to being treated as automatically “representing” the country or even the region they come from, which is hugely problematic. Among many publishers there is a real interest in contemporary Latin American fiction writ large, which is obviously never a balanced playing field. With literature translated from Spanish to English, there are lots and lots of books being translated from Argentina, Chile, quite a few books from Mexico, and far fewer from other places. You know, very unequal.

AM: Usually very little, next to nothing from Central America, I would imagine.

RM: Totally, next to nothing. Yeah, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, I’d say.

AM: Sometimes Peru, maybe? Or not even.

RM: Yeah, Peru a little more recently. I’m thinking of Katya Aduai, Gabriela Wiener. But anyway, my hope is that as interest in translation as a field continues to grow, and with increasing advocacy for translators as artists, the range and multiplicity of authors who get translated will also keep growing. I think all of that is on the rise, which is thrilling.

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Poets with Poets on Poetry: Stine An, Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, and E.J. Koh in Dialogue

March 23, 2022  |  in Interviews, Translator's Profile  |  by Darren Huang

I feel like I am at that seam between the English and Korean, looking at both languages simultaneously.

In the 2000s and 2010s, the great Korean-American poet and translator Don Mee Choi introduced Korean feminist poet Kim Hyesoon to the English-speaking world with a critically acclaimed selection, including Mommy Must Be A Fountain of Feathers (2008), All the Garbage of the World, Unite! (2012), and Autobiography of Death (2019). Choi’s groundbreaking work has inspired the flourishing of English translations of Korean poetry, and a new generation of Korean-American poet-translators, including Stine An, Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, and E.J. Koh, have built on this foundation by creating translations by Kim Hyesoon’s successors. Among their notable accomplishments include the surreal terrains of Yi Won—published in Cancio-Bello and Koh’s translation of The World’s Lightest Motorcycle (2021)—and the mournful yet witty poems of Yoo Heekyung.

In late February, I had the privilege of speaking with these three exciting new Korean-American voices in the worlds of both poetry and literary translation, where in they radiated love for the translation process, the poets whose work they have been translating, and their mentors. One could feel the warmth in the sisterly connections they recognized between each other. For Asymptote’s inaugural Poets with Poets on Poetry Feature, in which we gather poet-translators from across the world for dialogues about their work, I talked with Stine, Marci, and E.J. about the relationship between their poetry practices and translation, the idea of “rewilding” a translated piece, and their transforming relationships to the Korean language.

Darren Huang (DH): All three of you were initially trained in poetry. Can you talk about your journeys into translation?

Stine An (SA): I was actually interested in getting into translation when I was in undergrad and taking Korean language classes; I thought that translation could be a way to “give back to the motherland,” but I was told by my mentors that you couldn’t have a career in translation. Sawako Nakayasu—a poet, artist, performer, and translator—really encouraged me to explore translation as a way to enrich my own poetry practice. I had the chance to take an amazing translation workshop with her in my final year in the MFA program, in which we were getting the traditional literary translation canon while also learning about experimental translation practices—such as translation as an anti-neocolonial mode and as a way of queering language.

But my intention for going into translation this time around was to have a different relationship to the Korean language. I grew up in a large Korean-American enclave in Atlanta, and for me, Korean language has always been tied to an ethno-nationalist identity. I wanted a more personal relationship to the Korean language as a poet.

DH: E.J., do you want to talk a bit about how you came into translation? I also know this isn’t your first text of translation because your memoir was also an act of translation of your mother’s letters.

E.J. Koh (EK): Translation, to me, feels like a true beginning. I was in a program in New York, sitting in a poetry workshop with a very bad attitude, and my teacher said if you want to write good poetry, write poetry; if you want to write great poetry, translate. That day, I added literary translation to my work.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

March 11, 2022  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Erica X Eisen, Julia Sherwood, and Lee Yew Leong

In which we discuss the International Booker Prize longlist and bring you literary news from Poland and Uzbekistan!

This week, our editors from around the world discuss the 2022 International Booker longlist (released just yesterday), the Polish literary world’s reaction to the war in Ukraine, and literary nationalism in Uzbekistan. Read on to find out more!

Lee Yew Leong, Editor-in-Chief, on the 2022 International Booker Prize Longlist

The longlist for the 2022 International Booker Prize landed yesterday and we’re chuffed to see so many of our past contributors (20!), former team members (five!), and Book club titles (two!) on it! We’re especially thrilled for Anton Hur, who debuted in a big way by making the cover of our Fall 2016 edition with his translation of Jung Young Su’s “Aficionados” (we are proud to have played a small role in ”changing his life,” as he himself attests). Hur has not one but two titles on the 13-book list—a feat which, as far as we know, has never been accomplished before in the (admittedly short) history of the International Booker Prize. You can find his very smart metafictional essay on translating Bora Chung from our Winter 2021 issue here (accompanied by a translation into the Korean by Chung herself!); Hur also facilitates Rose Bialer’s interview with Sang Young Park here (both Chung and Park appear respectively with Cursed Bunny and Love in a Big City).

In stark contrast to last year’s longlist, which saw only one work from Asia included, this year was a bumper year for Asian representation, with five titles—among these, nominees Norman Erikson Pasaribu and translator Tiffany Tsao also first appeared together in Asymptote (read their debut in English here). We extend our warmest congratulations to editor-at-large David Boyd, whose co-translation, with Samuel Bett, of Mieko Kawakami’s Heaven—Kawakami’s inclusion this year makes up for the glaring omission of Breasts and Eggs last year—is also nominated. Before we let you check out the list on your own, we note, with no small measure of delight, that Phenotypes, our Book Club pick for January 2022, and After the Sun, our Book Club pick for August 2021, were also selected for the longlist, proving that joining our Book Club is one of the best ways to encounter tomorrow’s prizewinners today. Find our interviews with the two respective author-and-translator duos here (Paulo Scott and Daniel Hahn) and here (Jonas Eika and Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg). Best of luck to all nominees—and may the worthiest pair (or trio) win!

Erica X Eisen, Blog Editor, reporting on Uzbekistan

The month of February saw celebrations in honor of the 581st birthday of the poet Alisher Navoi, a key figure in the history of Central Asian literature who was born in 1441 in what was then the Timurid Empire. While festivities occurred in several countries of the former Soviet Union, they were most pronounced in Uzbekistan, where Navoi’s work is seen as foundational for the country’s national literature. In various parts of the country, admirers of the poet held readings of his ghazals and reflected on his life and legacy.

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Realizing the Myriad Possibilities of the Text: An Interview with Arunava Sinha

November 4, 2021  |  in Interviews  |  by Suhasini Patni

This is the truth of the world, that we live in various languages and not just one.

Arunava Sinha is a Delhi-based translator literary translator who works from Bengali to English and English to Bengali. He is the winner of the Crossword Book Award for Sankar’s Chowringhee (2007) and Anita Agnihotri’s Seventeen (2011), and sixty-six of his translations have been published so far, including a collection of Modern Bengali Poetry, novels by acclaimed writers such as Buddhadeva Bose and Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay, and a collection of Bengali short stories. He teaches in the creative writing department at Ashoka University and works as the books editor at Scroll.in.

I met him for the first time in 2019, when I worked as his teaching assistant. In a small class of six students, translating out of Hindi, Tamil, and Bengali, we worked on hearing the voice of a book and how to articulate it in a different language.

In this Zoom conversation, Sinha talks about translating Khwabnama by Akhtaruzzaman Elias, the questions he receives in his literary translation classes, and the publishing industry in India.

Suhasini Patni (SP): You’ve been translating for many years. In your latest interview with Forbes, you said you developed an interest in literary translation after realizing that Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude was a translation. Can you talk about your journey so far?

Arunava Sinha (AS): It began as an interest in college. I was an English literature student, and as you said, it struck me that these words we’re marveling over when we’re reading Garcia Marquez are really written by somebody else. I wanted to know what writing those words might be like. And of course, it immediately showed me that translation is completely different from what we assume it is. It’s all that is not said but that you are hearing at the back of your head. It is so little about the dictionary meaning because that’s the most easily solved problem. That is what makes a text so rich and what makes translation so interesting.

I had forgotten about translation because I moved to Delhi and switched jobs. It wasn’t until an editor at Penguin called me, asking me about Sankar’s Chowringhee that I rekindled my journey. And it was just at the right age for a midlife crisis, too!

SP: What kind of books did you begin with translating?

AS: I started with the canon, partly because there were not too many translations of the best-known books from Bangla at the time. There were a number of English publishers, and they were hungry for books to publish and there were not enough writers in English. So, it was quite a happy combination of circumstances. There was plenty of variety in the writing in the canon, but if you really step back and look at the big picture, it represented just one segment of possible writing in Bangla. That is what led me to start looking for texts with more diversity, both in terms of the content and the writer. People who wrote regularly did with a certain kind of lucidity which I think was market-facing even if they didn’t tell themselves so. But their books were written to be read by large numbers of people. They adopted a certain lucid idiom. Their art lay in playing with lucidity, but they never became obscure except for some experimental writers. When the field widened and I had other types of books to look for, they were not as bothered about the market. And they wrote in much stronger, much more literary—by literary I don’t mean high literary—but much more of an idiom that only literature can accept and accommodate. This of course has also made translation a more complicated but invigorating task. As you do more of the same thing, you want your challenges to get bigger.

It was partly this that led me to the text, until now, I think was the toughest to translate, which is Akhtaruzzaman Elias’s Khwabnama, which is daunting not just because of the actual language but also because you immediately realize the quality of that book and you are terrified that you will not be able to preserve it in the translated version. I think this was the biggest concern for me. I’m still not sure if it has worked or not. And I don’t think I ever will be. When you’re translating, your real challenge is the language, it’s not the literature. At that point, you’re not thinking of the literature, you’re just thinking of how to get a sentence across. Miraculously, somehow if you do it right, then all the pieces fall into place.

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Of Dreams and Dames: Ted Goossen on Translating Hiromi Kawakami’s People From My Neighborhood

September 17, 2020  |  in Book Club, Interviews  |  by Lindsay Semel

What Westerners . . . call magical realism … [is] a way of normalizing that which doesn’t easily fit into our categories.

Last month, we were delighted to bring you award-winning author Hiromi Kawakami’s latest in translation. Like much of her writing, our August Book Club selection tackles the everyday with a deliciously fantastic twist. In this interview with assistant managing editor Lindsay Semel, the inimitable Ted Goossen gives us a fascinating glimpse into the Japanese canon and the author’s place within it. He also shares his aversion to labels like “magical realism” or “women’s writing”: there are as many forms of the real and the female as there are cultures, he suggests, and that’s quite a gift.

The Asymptote Book Club aspires to bring the best in translated fiction every month to readers around the world. You can sign up to receive next month’s selection on our website for as little as USD15 per book; once you’re a member, you can join the online discussion on our Facebook page! 

Lindsay Semel (LS): You’ve mentioned in interviews (mainly in connection to MONKEY, the magazine of Japanese literature you co-edit) that you strive to bring non-canonical Japanese writers to Anglophone readers. Do you think there’s a difference between the Japanese literary canon and the Western canon of Japanese literature in translation?

Ted Goossen (TG): That’s an excellent question, and of course there’s a difference. Regarding the Western reception of Japanese literature, one of the earliest works was The Tale of Genji: a 1,200-page, thousand-year-old novel written by a court lady, whose manuscript was initially hand-copied and circulated among her female peers. The first English translation, Arthur Waley’s, was published around 1920. At that time, Genji was highly exotic, even for the Japanese, because it was written in a way they couldn’t read. So Waley did us all a great service with his beautiful translation, and since then, there have been four or five more.

Other than that, Japanese literature didn’t really gain a Western audience until the 1960s; at that point, the US had made Japan—its enemy in World War II—an ally, and it had tried to resurrect its reputation. Because of the war, Americans thought of the Japanese as cruel and heartless, so the US needed to make them more “human,” render them more attractive. Not only was there an element of exoticism when it came to Japanese culture, then, but also a need to rehabilitate it. When Yasunari Kawabata won the Nobel Prize in 1968, Japanese literature was prized for the kind of poetic, Zen-like quality present in his writing. Kenzaburō Ōe, who won the Nobel in 1994, distanced himself from that whole stream, and his literature is unlike any that preceded it; it did garner a Western audience, albeit a relatively small one. Now, of course, it’s Murakami. He dominates the West to such an extent that when we speak of “non-canonical,” it’s almost like we’re saying “non-Murakami.”

You’ve mentioned MONKEY, and the paradox there is that Murakami is one of our biggest supporters; he and my co-editor Motoyuki Shibata are very close, I know him as well, and Jay Rubin, a frequent collaborator, is one of his best translators. So ironically, we’re using the magazine to highlight the work of writers who aren’t Murakami, but we use Murakami to draw attention to it by publishing lots of interesting interviews, essays, and dialogues about or with him. Still, certain authors like Mieko or Hiromi Kawakami are getting lots of buzz in their own right, simply because they’re so good. There are others, too, so we’re seeing the rise of quite a few Japanese writers in the English-speaking literary world. READ MORE…

On the Anniversaries of Dead Writers: Make Room

May 25, 2016  |  in Essays  |  by Allegra Rosenbaum

"There is something to be said about the Western world constantly emphasizing its own literary canon and even more so the canon of dead authors."

Shakespeare is celebrating the 400th anniversary of his death this year and Cervantes is as well. England and Spain are having their respective celebrations. I set up news alerts for these kinds of updates in hopes to find out about literary events around the world. It keeps me in the know to a certain extent.

As I looked through my news alerts for World Literature over the past few months, I was unsurprised by the continual focus on the West, specifically these two writers. I’m not against it. I’m a huge fan of both of these writers’ works. Of course their works have influenced countless writers and of course literature would not be the same without them. Shakespeare and Cervantes are some of the largest names in the canon.

That doesn’t mean the emphasis should consistently be on the canon.   READ MORE…