We’re thrilled to announce that Asymptote’s globetrotting third anniversary party, which kicked off in London and New York in January, will continue across five continents over the next month—watch our brand-new video trailer below for a taste, and don’t forget to RSVP at our Shanghai (March 29), Philadelphia (March 29), Berlin (April 3), and Sydney (April 11) Facebook Event pages, already live.
In case you can’t make it, don’t fret: we’ve launched a new Events page, where you can find photos, podcasts, videos, and dispatches of all the events we’ve ever organized, as well as an up-to-date pulse for all upcoming events!
***
We’ve got coverage in the form of high-tech highlights from this year’s New York and London events:
At the New York Event page, find videos of readings by Eliot Weinberger (translator of Octavio Paz, Jorge Luis Borges, and Bei Dao), Robyn Creswell (poetry editor of the Paris Review), Idra Novey (noted translator of Clarice Lispector, among others), Daniella Gitlin (translator of Rodolfo Walsh), Jeffrey Yang (poet, translator of Liu Xiaobo, and editor at New Directions Press) and Cory Tamler (our talented winner in the fiction category of 2013’s Close Approximations Prize, Asymptote’s translation contest).
Here’s the video of the panel discussion. But, first, a teaser from one of the panelists:
Eliot Weinberger: I think that one of the great stories of translation is the cultural inferiority complex, or when one is embarrassed about one’s own culture. You had a great moment of translation during the 1960s during the Vietnam War, during the civil rights movement, because people were really embarrassed to be American, and they became eager to hear what’s happening in the rest of the world, and translation really was a part of the counter-culture […] And then [translation] came back around 2000, with Bush and the Iraq War. Once again it was very embarrassing to be an American and once again people became eager to hear what the rest of the world was saying, and that coincided with the internet, and so much becoming available and so many new means of communication opening.
Across the Atlantic, at the London Event page, find a podcast of the panel we organized at Free Word Centre featuring George Szirtes (poet, translator and winner of the Best Translated Book Award), Boyd Tonkin (journalist, editor and critic), Ros Schwartz (current Chair of English PEN’s Writers in Translation Programme) and Aamer Hussein (short story writer, essayist and Asymptote contributing editor).
A teaser:
Georges Szirtes: When I said I was dissatisfied with the translation, I simply meant it wasn’t a good enough poem. It wasn’t a good enough poem in that, the original poem, I felt, was a remarkably fine poem and my poem wasn’t a remarkably fine poem. It wasn’t so much a matter of lexicographical accuracy. It was sense of carnal recognition.
Listen to the entire podcast and view photos of the event here.
**
The excitement doesn’t stop there… because Asymptote is coming to:
SHANGHAI: “New Voices from China and South Korea,” March 29, 5pm at Anne-Cecile Noique Art. Featuring Asymptote contributors Eleanor Goodman (reading her translations of Li Li, Sun Wenbo and Wang Xiaoni) and Eun Joo Kim (reading her translations of Kim Ki-taek). Jointly presented with NYU Shanghai. Details here. Douban page here.
PHILADELPHIA: “Voices in Translation,” March 29, 7pm at Asian Arts Initiative. Award-winning translator Vincent Kling (Schlegel-Tieck Prize), Katherine Hill (The Violet Hour), Ken Kalfus (Equilateral), and Hilary Plum (They Dragged Them Through the Streets) will gather for an evening of readings and musical performances. Details here.
BERLIN: “Wort/Word/Worth: A bilingual evening of translation,” April 3, 8pm at Alte Kantine Wedding. Shane Anderson and Katy Derbyshire will read and discuss their Uljana Wolf translations with poet Eugene Ostashevsky, followed by a discussion of German translation moderated by senior editor Florian Duijsens and featuring novelist-translators Brittani Sonnenberg and Thomas Pletzinger—all capped with drinks and dancing. Details here.
SYDNEY: “A Celebration of Literary Translation in Australia,” April 11, 6pm at Gleebooks. Readings by Chris Andrews, Chris Edwards and Mridula Nath Chakraborty will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Elizabeth McMahon and featuring Peter Boyle, Gonzalo Melchor, Laetitia Nanquette and more. Details here.
We’re excited to see you there!