A glorious and happy Friday, Asymptote readers! Our Summer 2016 issue is here, featuring the works of Pierre Joris, Sawako Nakayasu, Philippe Sollers, Pedro Novoa, and more!
Asymptote is also doing not one, but two contests with prizes! Share your favorite piece from the new issue on social media with the hashtag #ReadAsymptote and you’ll have a chance to win a book. Who doesn’t love books? Especially these ones:
The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa by Chika Sagawa (tr. Sawako Nakayasu),
Panty by Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay,
The Art of Flight by Sergio Pitol, and
The Journey by Sergio Pitol.
The second contest involves sending us your favorite piece in the new issue and why in 400 words or less. Submit here today for another chance to win one of those precious free books! The deadline for each contest is the 19th of July.
In big writers’ news, The Wall Street Journal released an interview with Elena Ferrante, translated by the magnificent Ann Goldstein. Speaking of translation (well, we are always speaking of translation here), definitely take a read through this first-generation translator’s painful journey of recreating Korean literature. And speaking of interviews as we were before, The Rumpus Poetry Book Club recently chatted with Solmaz Sharif. Read that interview here.
And don’t forget about the life of Osamu Tezuka; a biography of the master manga maker is now available in English. In addition, a bizarre, Game-of-Thrones-esque novella by Saddam Hussein has also received an English translation.
In deaths, short story writer Zaka Ur Rehman passed away last week. In awards, the new PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers is available for publishers to submit to. And the longlist for the 2016 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize has been announced. In festivals, the Bangkok Book Festival is happening this weekend.
In other news, LitHub featured an essay this week on rereading Proust. What’s more, Sotheby’s is auctioning an entire collection of numismatic literature. Learn about coins and currency! Plus, there’s a literary heat wave happening in Mexico thanks to two brilliantly written novels.