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.

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

December 17, 2021 | in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup | by Alan Mendoza Sosa, Andriana Hamas, and MARGENTO

The latest from Mexico, Bulgaria, Belgium, and Romania!

Though Asymptote is winding down with the year, literary events and going-ons continue to thrive around the globe. In Mexico, the Guadalajara International Book Fair presents its impressive line-up, and Polish female poets are celebrated in a new collection. In Bulgaria, the Christmas Book Fair returns to delight the locals. and in Romania, the Gaudeamus Book Fair features over one hundred exciting events. Read on to find out more!

Alan Mendoza Sosa, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Mexico

On December 10, Mexican editor, poet, and translator Isabel Zapata presented Dentro del bosque, an English-Spanish translation of the autobiographical essay Into the Woods by American author Emily Gould. The essay reflects on contemporary capitalist precarity through Gould’s personal experience as a young woman trying to make a living as a writer in New York City. Originally published in 2014, its translation into Spanish is part of the Editor’s Collection from Gris Tormenta, an independent publisher based in Querétaro, a rapidly growing state three hours north of Mexico City. Gris Tormenta has published several Asymptote contributors in the past, including Yuri Herrera, Tedi López Mills, and Thomas Bernhard.

On December 4, Mexican poet Rocío Cerón and Polish poet Marta Eloy Cichocka presented Luz que fue sombra, a Polish-Spanish bilingual collection of seventeen Polish female poets born between 1963 and 1981, translated by Abel Murcia and Gerardo Beltrán. The book was published in the Spanish independent press Vaso Roto, which has published Spanish translations of important authors such as Anne Carson, John Ashbery, and Ocean Vuong. It includes poems by Justyna Bargielska, Barbara Klicka, Krystyna Dąbrowska, and Urszula Zajączkowska. Julia Fiedorczuk, whose book Oxygen was reviewed for Asymptote by Elisa González, is one of the most renowned authors in the collection. The event took place in Talleres de Arte Contemporáneo (TACO), a cultural centre south of Mexico City dedicated to promoting and teaching contemporary art.

The 35th edition of the Guadalajara International Book Fair took place in Guadalajara, one of Mexico’s largest cities, between November 27 and December 5. It is considered one of the most important book festivals in Latin America. This year, the guest of honor was Peru, from where several important authors and artists travelled to Mexico to present their work, lead workshops, and host panels. Among them was Asymptote contributor Victoria Guerrero. Importantly, the events featuring Peru offered significant representation of literature written in indigenous languages, including books by Dina Ananco Ahuananchi, Gabriel Pacheco, Cha’ska Ninawaman, and Washington Córdova. The fair also featured both emerging and established authors from all over the world. Many of them have previously appeared in Asymptote, such as Ana Luísa Amaral, Georgi Gospodinov, Abdellah Taïa, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, and Alejandro Zambra.

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

Bulgaria has, for a long time now, been in the grips of mass paranoia, an all-encompassing misinformation campaign, and political turmoil. The health situation also not looking up; according to official statistics, the COVID-19 deaths are, sadly, approaching the chilling number of 30 000 since the beginning of the pandemic—a figure that definitely cannot be trivialised given the overall population. READ MORE…

Contributors:

Languages:

Places:

Writers:

Tags:

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

July 13, 2018 | in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup | by Charlie Ng, Julia Sherwood, and Manel Mula Ferrer

Our weekly roundup of literary news brings us to Hong Kong, Poland, and Spain.

Another week has flown by and we’re back again with the most exciting news in world literature! This time our editors focus on Hong Kong, Poland, and Spain.

Charlie Ng, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong:

This year’s Hong Kong Muse Fest ran from June 23 to July 8. Themed “Museum Is Typing . . .”, the event presented an array of exhibitions and activities that took place across public museums in Hong Kong. It aimed to explore Hong Kong’s cultural heritage, history, arts and science, providing a variety of new and interactive experience to reshape the audience’s conception of the museum. Besides museum exhibitions, the programmes also included literary elements, such as the special programme, “Human Library” (part of “Sparkle! Counting the Days”), which invited members of different communities to share their life stories with readers. In the “Crossing Border” Special Talk Series, “Extraordinary Intrinsic Quality of Grandmasters—Bruce Lee vs Jin Yong”, speakers shared their views on the achievements of Chinese martial arts actor, Bruce Lee, and martial arts fiction writer, Jin Yong.

Translation Tuesday: ‘Moss’ by Julia Fiedorczuk

June 5, 2018 | in Translations | by Anna Zaranko and Julia Fiedorczuk

I shall have to overcome the vanity, the applause, my own self, and measure up to life—measure up to death.

Much of the prose in Asymptote‘s Spring 2018 fiction section (especially Jon Fosse’s Scenes from a Childhood) includes keenly observed sketches from childhood. This Tuesday, we bring you a piece from Poland that continues that theme. In Julia Fiedorczuk’s ‘Moss’, the narrator’s recollections of her grandmother are a powerful evocation of a child’s experience through the grown-up’s consciousness. And fair warning: you’re probably gonna shed a tear or two when you get to the last line.

But I’m still a child, then, who doesn’t know how to read yet.

I’m five, maybe six years old, in a purple flannel dress with little green roses. That child’s thin legs are sticking out from under the dress. Scratched and bruised like seventy sorrows. I’m sitting on a high stool in front of a mirror, legs dangling in mid-air. She’s standing behind me. Brushing my hair. I have long hair, the colour of ripe corn. Fine hair; it won’t survive adolescence: it’ll have to be cut when I hit fifteen.