Dreamers may often lie, yet they do dream things true, proclaimed Romeo. This summer, Queen Mab hath been with Asymptote, whispering in twenty-one languages of “Dreams and Reality” and gracing us with new work from thirty countries along with guest artist Mirza Jaafar’s crisp visions. For Canadian luminary Nicole Brossard, “The figure is as real as politics,” and words are well capable of “injur[ing] lives,” as Moroccan novelist Siham Benchekroun suggests. Don Quixote might agree that words are more than mere illusions: his illustrious translator Edith Grossman joins us for a candid interview on the art of bringing dreams to life across languages. 

Yiddish lives on in this issue’s Special Feature headlined by celebrated modernists Yankev Glatshteyn and Itzik Manger—thanks in part to the generous support of the Yiddish Book Center. Aided by generous helpings of Biblical tales and ancient traditions, this eminently international language conveys everything from Isaac Berliner’s dreams of ancient South America to Yermiyahu Ahron Taub’s modern-day America. Even Dvoyre Vogel’s urban landscapes of Europe seem to have leapt from our dreams in tones of grey and yellow.

Of course, death is no dream. Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz ponders our inexplicable demises in his crime story-turned-parable. Avant-garde Korean poet I Sang contemplates a dying butterfly (“a hotline to the other world”); Matt Reeck, on the other hand, discusses compatriot Kim Hyesoon’s much more disturbing evocations of our brutal condition. Yet however troubling, however irrefutable the realities we face, “we’re also determined to find a way back to the world, to the body, to the overwhelming tumult of the present,” as Fausto Alzati Fernández did to overcome debilitating addiction.

But even this ineluctable pull of reality does not drive dreams away. Sophocles’ famed warrior, bulwark of the Achaeans, cannot escape from the labyrinth of madness Athena has cast over him. The protagonist in Bijan Najdi’s “A Rainy Tuesday” clings to a blue umbrella as though it were her father at last freed from an Iranian prison. The poets too cherish their madness: “I was dreaming about being a boy once again in Gijón,” writes Leonardo Sanhueza, while Pamela Proietti observes that “Being lost / isn’t voluntary, it just naturally follows / when I wake up.” Do we ever truly awaken? Or else, may we ever rest and dream at last? 

Whether awake or dreaming, we all “contend with the impossibility of the impossible” (Michael Autrey). Jorge Wellesley’s blank, decaying, or blurred billboards, featured in our Visual section, stand like empty, surreal slogans. But for Asymptote, words are more than slogans: they bear witness to our folly, our illusions, and our humanity. Support us (and the independent publishers that make world literature possible) by subscribing to our Book Club. Is there an author you’re dying to introduce to the English-speaking world? If so, submit to our essay contest, judged by none other than J. M. Coetzee. The Nobel Prize winner will help us award $1,000 in prizes alongside publication in our special ninth anniversary issue! The deadline to enter this contest is October 1st. We’ll bring you updates on this contest, along with the latest in world literature, via our daily blog as well as on Facebook and Twitter. If you are a fan of our work, join us in living the dream by becoming a sustaining member or even a masthead member for as little as $5 per month. Together, we can bring about a more inclusive world literature.

—Lee Yew Leong, Editor-in-Chief

Editorial Team for Issue July 2019

Editor-in-Chief: Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)

Senior Editor: Sam Carter (USA)

Assistant Managing Editors: Janani Ganesan (India), Josefina Massot (Argentina), Rachael Pennington (Spain/UK), Garrett Phelps (UK/USA), Lou Sarabadzic (UK/France), and Jacob Silkstone (Norway/UK)

Section Editors:
Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)
Ellen Jones (UK)
Joshua Craze (UK/USA)
Caridad Svich (USA/UK)
Sam Carter (USA)
Sarah Timmer Harvey (USA/The Netherlands)
Ah-reum Han (USA/South Korea)
Victoria Livingstone (USA)
Eva Heisler (USA)

Editor of Special Feature on Yiddish Poetry: Alexander Dickow (USA) and Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)

Assistant Editors: Alyea Canada (USA), Ben Dreith (Canada), Helena Fornells (UK), Erik Noonan (USA), Chris Power (USA), Andreea Scridon (UK/Romania), Lindsay Semel (Portugal/USA), P. T. Smith (USA), and Lin Chia-wei (Taiwan)

Contributing Editors:
Ellen Elias-Bursac (USA), Aamer Hussein (Pakistan/UK), Sim Yee Chiang (Singapore), Dylan Suher (USA), and Adrian West (USA)

Translation Tuesdays Editor: Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)

Podcast Editor: Layla Benitez-James (Spain/USA)

Art Director: Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)

Assistant Director, Educational Arm: Barbara Thimm (USA/Germany)

Editors-at-large, Brazil: Daniel Persia
Editor-at-large, Chile: Scott Weintraub
Editor-at-large, El Salvador: Nestor Gomez
Editor-at-large, Guatemala: José García
Editors-at-large, Hong Kong: Jacqueline Leung and Charlie Ng Chak-Kwan
Editor-at-large, Iran: Poupeh Missaghi
Editor-at-large, Lebanon: Ruba Abughaida
Editor-at-large, Mexico: Paul Worley 
Editor-at-large, Morocco: Hodna Nuernberg
Editor-at-large, Romania and Moldova: MARGENTO
Editor-at-large, Slovakia: Julia Sherwood
Editor-at-large, Taiwan: Vivian Chih


Masthead for Issue July 2019

Fiction and Poetry: Lee Yew Leong
Nonfiction: Joshua Craze
Drama: Caridad Svich
Criticism: Ellen Jones
Writers on Writers: Ah-reum Han and Victoria Livingstone
Special Feature on Yiddish Poetry: Alexander Dickow and Lee Yew Leong
Visual: Eva Heisler
Interviews: Sarah Timmer Harvey
Illustrations and Cover: Mirza Jaafar

Chief Executive Assistants: Lucy Morgan
Director of Outreach: Alessandro Mondelli
Senior Executive Assistant: Daljinder Johal
Executive Assistants: Zane Lilley and Bernice Seow
Book Club Manager: Sophia Neitsch

Assistant Blog Editors: Jonathan Egid, Nina Perrotta, and Xiao Yue Shan

Guest Artist Liaison: Berny Tan

Co-Chief Copy Editor: Steven Teref

Copy Editors: Anna Aresi, Andrea Blatz, Devarati Chakrabarti, Choo Suet Fun, Angela Glindemann, Alice Horne, Clayton McKee, James Shrieve, Steven Teref, and Lara Zammit

Technical Manager: József Szabó

English Social Media: May Huang, Carlotta Moro, Leah Scott, and Ananya Sriram

Spanish Social Media: Sergio Serrano

French Social Media: Filip Noubel 

Chinese Social Media: Jiaoyang Li and Jessica Wang

Marketing Manager: Lauren Chamberlain

Marketing Analyst: Nicolás Llano Linares

Graphic Designer: Anna Wang

Communications Manager: Alexander Dickow

Assistant Director, Educational Arm: Barbara Thimm

Educational Arm Assistants: Kasia Bartoszyńska, Mary Hillis, and Maria Snyder

Asymptote would like to acknowledge the support especially of:


 


without whose generous sponsorship the Yiddish Poetry Feature could not have happened. We also wish to thank Dubravka Ugrešić, Madeleine Cohen, Eliyana Adler, Astrid Alben, Maria Jesus Alonso, Forrest Gander, Francesca Vinter, Jacob Rogers, Chenxin Jiang, and Sarah-Jayne Carver.

For their generous donations, our heartfelt thanks go too to Anna Aresi, Daniel Hahn, Danielle Farnbaugh, Jeffrey Boyle, Julie Hillery, Lara Norgaard, Mallory Truckenmiller, MMark Cohen, Martin Ingebrigtsen, Matthew Mazowita, Monty Reid, Nancy Relaford, Ruth Diver, Siobhan Mei, Ulf Jacobsen, Velina Manolova, William Cadwallader. In addition, we’d like to welcome Maria Figueira to our family as a sustaining member, as well as shout out to the fine folks at OOMPH! Press who took out a month-long ad at our daily blog.