This twisting narrative from Serbia delves into our deepest fears and anxieties
Tickets for America
I am walking down the street
someone is following me
the heart is beating
it is dark
no one around
dread all over
I shiver
getting near
I start to run
the front door is locked
I ring the intercom
keep running
just so I am not standing still
such darkness
such a town
"Do the Siamese differ from us just on the level of their names for concepts, or is their very conception of the world different?"
A few weeks ago, I sat down to write up a few thoughts I had been having regarding a twelfth century South Indian encyclopedia called the Mānasollāsa. I’ve been reading from this encyclopedia with much guidance from Dr. M.A. Jayashree, who is currently leading up a massive translation and critical edition project. The encyclopedia itself is massive: much of its scholarship gives up halfway, and the translation project still has a long, long way to go.
Somewhere in the translation process, I picked up the rhythms and cadences of king Someśvara III. What was initially supposed to be a short blog post morphed into a bizarre trip down many (partially fictitious) orientalist caverns, eventually reemerging somewhere in what is now known as Karnataka. The editors at Asymptote followed me down the rabbit hole, offering guidance along the way, and together we decided to split up the piece into a series of more digestible fragments. Hang in there! I hope you all stick along for the ride.
A look at some of the most important literary news of the past week
It’s the first Friday of March, and the month’s madness is already underfoot. If you think we’re referring to the sort of lunacy of hoops, athleticism, and bouncing orange balls, don’t be fooled: in the wake of the madness that is AWP in Seattle, this March portends quite a bit for literary lunatics, as the finalists for several big-name prizes are announced… READ MORE…
"Для детей нужно писать так же, как для взрослых, только лучше." (Variously attributed to Maxim Gorky, Samuil Marshak, Leo Tolstoy, others.)
In the life of every bibliophile-parent, there comes a moment when each new children’s book begins to seem very much like the last. A blurry train of flat narratives skim past one’s eyes, filled with stock characters, stale language, and an all-too-familiar anodyne tone. Yes, there are brilliant books that stand out, and these are worth reading and re-reading. But there is also a sameness that suffuses English-language books for young people, a shared set of narrative tools and assumptions. READ MORE…
The latest from Asymptote's team of international editors
Hard at work on Asymptote’s upcoming issue, our editors still have time to write, publish, translate, and organize conferences and plays. Read the thrilling and bizarre ruminations of Forrest Gump’s Slovakian evil twin, an essay on why loss in translation is inevitable and okay, and find out what to do in Seattle now that AWP has ended!
"Translators should pay better attention than any other reader, and the translator should be at least as creative as the original author."
What is your favorite word in any language? Which word do you find most difficult to translate?
mda.
I don’t translate words, but works, authors, “the whole surround.”
"Disappointingly, Chutzpah!’s life was cut short just as we got to the point where we had...consistent(ly)...high-quality pieces."
The radically cosmopolitan Chutzpah! announced on 20 February that it will shut down. This news was greeted with great dismay among the many followers of the beautiful print magazine. In a short period of time, Chutzpah! had established itself as the Chinese literary journal du jour. Not only did it introduce important contemporary Western voices such as Roberto Bolaño, Jesmyn Ward and Junot Diaz to the Chinese reading public via Chinese translation, it also presented a dazzling range of emerging Chinese voices, showcasing even ethnic minorities. Many of these authors have also been translated into English for the English mini-journal that is inserted within the pages of the journal. In this way, the magazine connects the latest crop of Chinese writers to English-speaking readers.
As a co-collaborator with Chutzpah! on two occasions (first, for a simultaneous publication in the October 2012 issue and, second, for a panel of literary editors in Beijing in January 2013), we were naturally saddened by the magazine’s closure and wanted to find out more. So our Editor-in-Chief Lee Yew Leong arranged for the following interview with Chutzpah!‘s English editor Austin Woerner. READ MORE…