Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

June 11, 2021 | in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup | by Carol Khoury, Eva Wissting, and Jacqueline Leung

Catch up on the latest literary news from Palestine, Sweden, and Hong Kong!

This week, Gaza’s reading community reels from the devastating loss of a beloved bookstore, and Sweden debates a new library to promote freedom of expression. In Hong Kong, leading literary voices pay homage on the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, even as the annual Victoria Park vigil was canceled due to coronavirus concerns. Tour the literary world without leaving home; Asymptote‘s editors-at-large will punch your passport.

Carol Khoury, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Palestine

When his mobile phone rang at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, May 18, Samir Mansour was not asleep anyway, as the bombardment of Gaza was still on. The caller, the Israeli military, was asking if Mansour was inside his bookshop and publishing house, as they “didn’t want to hurt” him. They hung up, and shortly after, their shells reduced what was once “happy and loving memories” to a pile of rubble.

The beloved local bookshop, which stood on the ground floor of a larger building, was one of the two blockaded Gaza Strip’s largest sellers of books. The other bookshop, owned by Shaban Aslim, was also destroyed by an airstrike the same week. Mr. Aslim spoke of the work he put into creating his store in an interview, saying “this was my dream that cost me so much.”

To Palestinians living in Gaza, the two bookstores played a key role as a center of intellectual ‎life, and their destruction represents the wider loss of culture in Gaza.‎ Mansour’s bookshop, located near several universities, ‎was also the unofficial home of several English-‎language book clubs, and printed and published works by local authors for the past twenty-one years. “Books are my life,” said Mansour, who would like to rebuild his store one day. Hopes are high that the bookstore will be rebuilt with donations after an online fundraiser was set up and managed by human rights lawyers.

A post to the bookshop’s Instagram page laments the loss of the sense of ‎community the store offered to people in Gaza. But not all stories are lost! Tareq Hajjaj’s piece in Middle East Eye gives a glimpse of fear and loathing in Gaza from before the latest war. The Palestine Book Award, now celebrating its tenth year, is publishing Writing Palestine, with Arabic and English texts, which “uniquely brings together revered names.” The Award’s list of winners honors and endorses the best written in English on Palestine. And do not miss M. Lynx Qualey’s list of seventeen new books by Palestinian writers worth reading. READ MORE…

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Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

May 28, 2021 | in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup | by Jacqueline Leung, Julia Sherwood, and Suhasini Patni

The latest news from Hong Kong, Slovakia, and India!

This week, our writers deliver the latest literary news from Hong Kong, Slovakia, and India. Read about the newest translations to come out of Hong Kong, including works by Duo Duo and Leung Lee-chi. Meanwhile, the pandemic continues to shake the literary world: we hear of how the arts continue to be neglected in Slovakia’s recent recovery plan, and India losing some of her brightest writers amidst this crisis. Despite this, some hopeful signs that things might change. Read on to find out more!

Jacqueline Leung, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong

Chinese poet Duo Duo’s Words as Grain, translated from the Chinese by award-winning translator Lucas Klein, is out this month. A recipient of the PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant, Words as Grain is a new collection spanning approximately five decades of the poet’s oeuvre since the 1970s, with a full representation of Duo Duo’s work since his return to China from exile in 2004 and a selection of earlier poems. Duo Duo is hailed as an exponent of the Chinese Misty Poets and has been described by essayist and critic Eliot Weinberger as “a political poet who makes no statements; a realist poet in an alternate universe.” One may revisit Duo Duo’s poem, “Promise,” published in Asymptote’s July 2018 issue and translated by Klein, for a taste.

May also sees the publication of Jennifer Feeley’s translation of Hong Kong writer Leung Lee-chi’s short story, “Empty Rooms,” up on Two Lines Journal. A 2020 winner of the Award for Young Artist in Literary Arts by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, Leung is among a younger generation of Hong Kong writers starting to get exposure in the English language. “Empty Rooms” is a response to late novelist Liu Yichang’s short story “Turmoil” depicting the chaos of the 1967 riots through the perspectives of inanimate objects. In a similar vein, “Empty Rooms” portrays the interior of an apartment to piece together moments of memory and departure.

It is also exciting to see the announcement of results for the 7th Bai Meigui Translation Competition organized by The Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing. “The Season When Flowers Bloom,” Francesca Jordan’s winning translation of an excerpt from Taiwanese writer Yang Shuangzi’s novella, is selected by the judging panel consisting of Susan Wan Dolling, Mike Fu, and Darryl Sterk. Jordan will be offered a place in the upcoming “Bristol Translates” Literary Translation Summer School in July. Honorable mentions from the competition include entries by Stella Jiayue Zhu, Will Jones, and Lucy Craig-McQuaide. READ MORE…

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Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

June 7, 2019 | in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup | by Jacqueline Leung, Nina Perrotta, and Paul M. Worley

June is a month of commemoration and celebration from opposite sides of the Pacific.

Literature has always been at the forefront in movements for societal change, and, in the efforts to continually push for action, we perceive the bold literary markers that fulfill art’s role to pay tribute, to inspire, and to call for attention. It’s been thirty years since the Tiananmen Square massacre occurred on June 4, 1989 in Beijing. It’s been over fifty years since the Latin American Studies Association was founded in the spirit of building civic engagement. It’s been fifty years since the Stonewall Riots began on June 28th, 2019 in New York City. From commemorations in Hong Kong, joyous displays of pride in the US, and unprecedented exchange of Latin American academic dialogues occurring in Boston, our editors bring you news that show a valiant, ongoing endeavour towards justice.

Jacqueline Leung, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong

2019 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests, also called the June Fourth Incident, for which it is tradition among different parties in Hong Kong to hold annual commemoration. In light of the anniversary, the city’s literary journals are organizing special features and events to take stock of the cultural, political, and social changes the incident has caused in Hong Kong, China, and beyond.

Cha, Hong Kong’s resident literary journal in the English language, is publishing a special edition of original English and translated works, photography, and art exploring the incident and its aftermath. The issue will include a selection of translated works by Chinese poets Duo Duo (featured in Asymptote’s Summer issue last year, also translated by Lucas Klein), Meng Lang, Lin Zhao, Xi Chuan, and Yian Lian, as well as a translation of “One Family’s Story” by Ding Zilin, co-founder of the Tiananmen Mothers. Alongside the Tiananmen issue, Cha is also collaborating with PEN Hong Kong to hold a remembrance reading with local writers at Bleak House Books on June 3.

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

January 18, 2019 | in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup | by Diána Vonnák, Jacqueline Leung, and Norman Erikson Pasaribu

Your weekly literary news from around the world, all in one convenient package.

Awards, new translations, and a poet working to help the homeless—all this and more awaits in today’s dispatches! From Hong Kong, Hungary, and Indonesia, our editors-at-large have the latest updates.

Jacqueline Leung, Editor-at-Large for Hong Kong, reporting from Hong Kong

In the last few months of 2018, Hong Kong saw the deaths of several literary greats, but with January comes commemoration and activity. Martial arts novelist Louis Cha Leung-yung, or “Jin Yong,” passed away on October 30, 2018, just half a year after the publication of Legends of the Condor Heroes: A Hero Born, the English translation of one of his emblematic wuxia series set during the Song Dynasty. A Bond Undone, the second volume of the quartet, will be published at the end of this month in Gigi Chang’s translation. Its release is likely to gain even more traction in the aftermath of the writer’s passing.

Announcing the Summer 2018 Issue of Asymptote

July 19, 2018 | in News | by Asymptote

Introducing our thirtieth issue, which gathers never-before-published work from 31 countries!

We interrupt our regular programming to announce the launch of Asymptote’s Summer 2018 issue!

Step into our bountiful Summer edition to “look for [yourself] in places [you] don’t recognize” (Antonin Artaud). Hailing from thirty-one countries and speaking twenty-nine languages, this season’s rich pickings blend the familiar with the foreign: Sarah Manguso and Jennifer Croft (co-winner, with Olga Tokarczuk, of this year’s Man Booker International Prize) join us for our thirtieth issue alongside Anita Raja, Duo Duo, and Intizar Husain, and our first work from the Igbo in the return of our Multilingual Writing Feature.