Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

April 21, 2023 | in Dispatches | by Areeb Ahmad, Eva Wissting, and MARGENTO

Literary news from Sweden, Romania, and India!

In this week’s updates on world literature, our Editors-at-Large bring you updates on literary awards and interdisciplinary festivals! From applied computer science for literature to books for Dalit History Month, read on to find out more!

Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden

Earlier this month, Norwegian novelist Vigdis Hjorth was announced the recipient of the inaugural Sara Danius Foundation Prize. Vigdis Hjorth is one of Norway’s most prominent writers, with over twenty novels and several young adult books published over the last forty years. English-language readers know her from titles like Is Mother Dead (2022) and Will and Testament (2019), both available in translation by Charlotte Barslund. Is Mother Dead was longlisted for the International Booker Prize, and Will and Testament was longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award in the USA for best translated novel. The Danius Foundation emphasized Vigdis Hjorth’s “groundbreaking and magnificent narrative that disrupts the order with style and clarity” in explaining their motivation for awarding Hjorth the Sara Danius Foundation Prize. The award consists of SEK 50,000 and an artwork depicting Sara Danius, painted by Stina Wirsén. Sara Danius was a Swedish scholar of literature and aesthetics, a literary critic and an essayist, and the first female permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy. After her passing in 2019, her family created the Sara Danius Foundation, with the purpose of supporting female pioneers in literature, humanities research, criticism, essay writing, journalism, and artistic activities. This year’s award ceremony will take place at the Sven-Harry Art Museum in Stockholm on May 3. READ MORE…

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Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

December 2, 2022 | in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup | by Carol Khoury, Eva Wissting, and Sofija Popovska

The latest from Palestine, Sweden, and Macedonia!

In this batch of literary dispatches from around the world at Asymptote, we cover literary conferences, recent publications, and rankings of writers in translation! From a gathering dedicated to the late iconic Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, a new Disney+ series revolving around the life of a boy in Scandinavia, and a collection of contemporary women’s poetry in Macedonia, read on to learn more!

Carol Khoury, Editor-at-Large for Palestine and the Palestinians, reporting from Palestine

Last weekend, the A. M. Qattan Foundation and its partners revived the memory of the late iconic Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish with more fervor than anyone has done since his death and burial in 2008. In collaboration with Chaire Mahmoud Darwich, Bozar, and Mahmoud Darwish Foundation, a three-day conference titled “Mahmoud Darwish: The Narrative of the Past and the Present,” was held in Ramallah and on Zoom, with twenty speakers discussing nearly as many topics related to the poet’s works and life.

It was indeed a very interactive conference, as many of the speakers and a majority of the audience knew Darwish personally. With lots of biographical anecdotes shared by panellists and attendants alike, Darwish’s designation as iconic was undoubtedly attested. It felt as if every single person knew every single detail of Darwish’s works and life. I wondered how long Darwish’s ‘response’ would have been if he were to attend the conference! He probably would have needed another three days to dot the i’s and cross the t’s! But, that wouldn’t have been too troublesome for Darwish; the relationship between him and his audience had always been one of tension. People loved him, his poems, and particularly his orations and readings. But it was such an overwhelming and imposing love that he himself had to write in 1969, “Save Us from this Cruel Love!”

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

February 4, 2022 | in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup | by Amaryllis Gacioppo, Andriana Hamas, and Eva Wissting

Ecopoetry and code-breaking are capturing readers around the world in this week's dispatches.

In this week’s dispatches, Bulgarian readers brave the winter for an event highlighting environmental literature, Sweden commemorates the beloved children’s book author, Astrid Lindgren, and Italy celebrates what would have been Umberto Eco’s 90^th birthday with a new publication. Read on to find out more!

Andriana Hamas, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Bulgaria

Believe it or not—it is already February, and despite the cold weather in Bulgaria, various cultural events are popping up here and there. With an ever-increasing focus on climate change and the dire consequences we are already facing, different local artists are attempting to highlight the need for conscious, collective action.

One of the strategies employed to combat phenomena such as global warming constitutes the recycling of different materials. Interestingly enough, the whole concept also happens to be at the heart of literary critic and professor of literary theory Amelia Licheva’s latest poetry collection, The Need for Recycling, which considers the act through the prism of creative impulses and intuitive journeys through one’s feelings and experiences. The book, officially published by Lexicon Publishing House on Christmas Eve, 2021, also contains illustrations by the painter Veselin Pramatarov. In an interview for the Bulgarian National Radio, Licheva revealed that the title could be interpreted as “the search for lost meaning.” She is fully aware that the formula is far from light, but insists that the initial shock—bound to rock the reader’s inner world—is in fact a sought-after provocation of sorts.

The launch of the book, which took place not long ago at Sofia City Library, was attended by over fifty people eager to hear the poetess’s newest verses. The lively discussion was hosted by the prominent writer Georgi Gospodinov (whose works have previously appeared in Asymptote) and translator Daria Karapetkova, with the actress Snezhina Petrova was in charge of recitation. After the long-anticipated premiere, the author used her social media profile to extend her gratitude to “all of my colleagues, friends, and students who attended the debut of my poetry collection. Thank you for the solidarity and for the unique privilege to be able to feel like a part of a meaningful community.”

Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden

A week ago today, on January 28, Sweden commemorated twenty years since the country’s most internationally known writer, Astrid Lindgren, passed away at the age of ninety-four. The creator of strong, ingenious, and unforgettable children’s book characters like Pippi Longstocking, Karlsson on the Roof, Ronja the Robber’s Daughter, and Lotta on Troublemaker Street, Lindgren has enthralled and inspired readers around the world for generations. Her books have been translated into 107 languages, including numerous translations into English by Joan Tate—who also has translated other significant Swedish writers like Ingmar Bergman, Kerstin Ekman, and P.C. Jersild. Lindgren has been awarded both national and international literary awards, as well as received honorary degrees from Linköping University in Sweden, the University of Leicester in the UK, and the University of Warsaw in Poland. On the year of her passing, the Swedish government instituted the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA), which awards a writer, illustrator, or promoter of reading in March every year. During her lifetime, Lindgren not only wrote for and about children, but she was also an activist for children’s rights––which is why the Astrid Lindgren estate today, together with Save the Children, continues to work on the Pippi of Today campaign for refugee girls. READ MORE…

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Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

April 17, 2020 | in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup | by Daljinder Johal, Eva Wissting, Poupeh Missaghi, and Sarah Moore

Bringing you the latest in literary news from Sweden, Iran, the UK, and Spain!

This week, our writers bring you the latest news from Sweden, Iran, and the UK. In Sweden, a new translation of Albert Camus’s The Plague is on its way, and the annual children’s book award ALMA has announced Baek Heena as its winner; in Iran, sales of The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree have surged after its nomination for The International Man Booker Prize, and readers have welcomed a Persian translation of Italian writer Paolo Giordano’s new non-fiction work about contagion; in the UK, authors and publishers are proving resourceful after the cancellation of key literary festivals; finally, people around the world have been mourning the death of best-selling Chilean author Luis Sepúlveda, who sadly passed away this week in Spain.

Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden

Easter in Sweden is usually a time when people have a few days off and either go skiing or open up the country cottage after the winter. This year, however, like in a lot of other places around the world, people have had to alter their plans as traveling was discouraged, even within the country. Unlike most of its neighboring countries, Sweden still allows bookstores as well as most other stores to remain open. Nevertheless, changed habits in a time of social and economic uncertainty has led to a decrease in sales of physical books by 35%. Although sales of e-books have increased by over 10%, bookstores have started plans to lay off employees and renegotiate rent costs, in order to manage a possible prolonged decline in book sales.

One book that nonetheless sells like never before in Sweden at this time, is French Algerian author Albert Camus’s The Plague from 1947. Swedish readers have the book today in a translation by Elsa Thulin from 1948, but a new translation is on the way, by Jan Stolpe, and will be available in stores by the end of April. READ MORE…

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A Moveable Feast: A Year of Reading Women in Translation

September 14, 2016 | in News | by Chris Gribble, David Maclean, Harriet Gilbert, Joanna Walsh, and Sasha Dugdale

In a genre that prides itself on celebrating diversity and shining a light on marginalised voices, women authors have consistently been overlooked.

This August marked the third anniversary of #WomenInTranslation month, a much-needed attempt to redress the balance between male and female authors within translated fiction. In a genre that prides itself on celebrating diversity and shining a light on marginalised voices, women authors have consistently been overlooked by publishers. The numbers paint a rather depressing picture, since according to Three Percent’s database, translated literature makes up approximately 3 percent of the literature published in English-speaking markets, and women make up a fraction of that — a mere 30 percent, or 0.9 percent of the literature that makes it to stores.

In this respect, #WIT Month is a fantastic way of highlighting women’s voices through the power of social media – demonstrating that not only are these books read, but that there is a large audience with a voracious appetite for literature in translation penned (and translated) by women. But I suspect that, like many others, once the dust has settled and we roll into Fall, my reading habits fall back into routine. The culture industry reflects the character of the society that it markets to, and the fact remains that it is considerably harder for women to get their work to appear to English than their male counterparts. If the problem is to achieve any sort of resolution, #WIT Month needs to first inspire a recognition of the gender biases within the industry and reading habits at large, and to introduce readers to women authors that end up being overlooked or that they might not otherwise have heard of — in short, WIT Month should become a moveable feast.