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Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

The latest from the Philippines, Bulgaria, and Colombia!

Join us this week as our Editors-at-Large bring us news on the most recent bestsellers in the Philippines, the translation of board games in Bulgaria, and the posthumous publication of García Márquez’s final novel in Colombia. From Wattpad-homegrown Filipino authors to the politics of posthumous publication, read on to learn more!

Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Editor-at-Large, reporting from the Philippines 

The memoir of Korean mega boy band BTS (both its English and Filipino translations) and the novel Queen of the Universe (Tuttle Publishing, 2023) by 2015 Miss Universe titlist Filipino beauty queen Pia Wurtzbach have triumphed over the early 2024 bestsellers list as gazetted by the National Book Store (NBS), the Philippines’ largest chain of commercial bookshops. 

A source of the so-called ‘Pinoy Pride’ from said list are The New York Times chart-topping debut fantasy novel by Thea Guanzon, The Hurricane Wars (Harper Voyager, 2023); journalist and historian Ambeth Ocampo’s Cabinet of Curiosities: History from Philippine Artifacts (published last year by Anvil, NBS’s sister company); and Panda Book Awards-shortlisted Gail Villanueva’s Lulu Sinagtala and the City of Noble Warriors (HarperCollins, 2024), a children’s book imbued with ancient Tagalog mythological lore—all testaments that Filipinos read books written by Filipino authors. 

Populating the local fiction hits are Wattpad-homegrown Filipino genre fictionists, their works ranging from new adult to romance, from chick lit to fantasy—among others, Gwy Saludes’ The Rain in España (which has since been adapted into a popularised Viva One web series) and Safe Skies, Archer, both released last year by Precious Pages under Saludes’ penname 4Reuminct; Disney Panganiban’s Zombie University 3 (Lifebooks, 2023); and No Perfect Prince (Majesty Press, 2023) by Jonahmae Pacala or Jonaxx, dubbed as the country’s ‘Pop Fiction Queen’ and the most celebrated contemporary writer from my hometown.  READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

The latest from China, India, and Palestine.

New arrivals of a Sinophone Proust, a celebration of Lucknow and Urdu culture, and a new solidarity campaign to share Palestinian literature. Our editors are bringing you the latest literary news from on the ground, and there’s plenty to discover.

Xiao Yue Shan, Blog Editor, reporting for China 

“Life is too short, and Proust is too long.” This snarky remark by (maybe) Anatole France has long hovered over the labours of translators worldwide, as much a challenge as it is an implicit acquiescence to just how difficult and time-consuming the text is. As multiple as his English appearances, Proust in Chinese also comes to us through a plethora of voices. There exists at present only one complete collection of À la recherche du temps perdu《追忆似水年华》in the Chinese language, published in 1989 through a concerted effort by Yilin Publishing House and a total of fifteen translators (who called themselves the “Suicidal Translators Squad”). This is the only version that has accompanied readers for over thirty years—with plenty of updates, corrections, and criticisms along the way—though the possibility of alternative editions always beckoned temptingly from the beyond; critics are always quick to note (not entirely without resentment) that in neighbouring Japan and South Korea, five or six full translations of this masterwork has been made available to the public.

Short as it may be, life presents plenty of distractions and exits for the overwhelmed translator. Luo Xinzhang exhausted himself after 50,000 characters. Xu Jun made it until halfway through the fourth volume before giving up at an impressive 230,000 characters, having expended eight hours a day for over two years (and also suffering from depression). Xu Hejin passed away. Zhou Kexi plead a lack of physical stamina, saying that he was drained by the text’s beauty. Many of them, along with readers, expressed tremendous regret that there would not be a single unified representation of Proust in the Chinese language, fluid in style, levelling up to the original, rooted in a single, persistent mind.

Then in 2020, something changed. The Dafang offshoot of CITIC Publishing Group suddenly announced the “Proust Project”, involving a plan to newly translate À la recherche du temps perdu with a single translator at the helm, based on Gallimard’s revised and annotated 1987 edition. The individual selected for the job was Kong Qian, a professor of French at Nanjing Normal University, who had been named Best New Translator at the 11th Fu Lei Translation Awards for her work on Kaouther Adimi’s Our Wealth. Kong has since been given ten years to complete the task—one that is, for any literary translator, a dream. It is the opportunity to occupy a permanent estate in world literature, a claim to a text that has embedded itself in both the literati and the public consciousness of China, even amidst the hurried days. (The book is so famous in China that directors will use it as a prop, in order to directly communicate a character’s highbrow tastes or worldly intellect.) READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

The latest in literary news from Japan, Egypt, and Kenya!

This week, our team from around the world brings news of literary award shortlists and winners! From the launch of the inaugural issue of Debunk Quarterly, to the winners of the Sawiris Cultural Awards, to the recent closure of a historical bookstore in Tokyo, read on to learn more!

Bella Creel, Blog Editor, Reporting from Japan

Where are Japan’s bookstores going? In the last two decades, the number of bookstores in Japan has nearly halved, dropping to only 11,495 in 2023. The figure speaks to the many locally-owned bookstores that have had to close over the years, unable to keep customers in a rapidly digitizing era. Some of these closures have garnered international and domestic attention, the latest of which was the historical “Bookshop 書楽” (Shogaku) in Tokyo’s Suginami ward. 

Owned by Mitsuru Ishida, Bookshop Shogaku has a long history in its small corner of Tokyo, located just outside of Asagaya Station for the past 43 years. The area of Asagaya itself—dubbed 文士の街, or “Literati Town”—has been a hub for creatives for well over a century, lined with jazz clubs, Showa-era coffee shops, and of course, bookstores. While famous literary figures such as Dazai Osamu and Masuji Ibuse once frequented the street and its many shelves, playing shogi and drinking as the “Asagaya Club,” over time Bookshop Shogaku became the last bookstore selling new titles in the area, until it closed as well. 

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

Dispatches from the Philippines, Bulgaria, and the Vietnamese Diaspora!

This week, our editors report on (attempts) at elucidation in the humanities and the cruelties of historic expatriation; the instating of Living National Treasures in the form of indigenous practitioners and their singular crafts; and a word that is meant to sum up a year. 

Thuy DinhEditor-at-Large, reporting on the Vietnamese Diaspora

The National Museum of Immigration History in Paris, France is currently offering a sobering exhibition on the history of Indochinese workers-soldiers, called les lính thợ or les công binh. As colonized subjects, twenty thousand men from Indochina—i.e., Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia—were brought to France at the onset of World War II to help with the war effort. Aside from a small percentage of educated volunteers who wished to escape the colony’s lack of social advancement, the majority, ranging from ages 18 to 30, was forcibly recruited from the poor peasantry to work in France’s defense industry.

Besides the exhibit, recollections by surviving workers have been compiled in recent years by various sources, such as the photographic essay “The Forced Oblivion” by Alejandra Arévalo, the graphic memoir “Les Lính Thợ: Immigrés de force, les travailleurs indochinois en France 1939-1952” (2017) by Pierre Daum and Clément Baloup, the film Công Binh, la longue nuit indochinoise (2013) by Lê Lâm, and the Vietnamese-French monograph, Những người lính thợ – Les travailleurs indochinois requis by Liêm Khê Luguern (2010).

When Germany invaded France in June 1940, the Indochinese workers were evacuated to the free zone in Southern France, where they worked in forestry and pioneered the rice-growing industry in the Camargue region. Both state-run and private companies employed these workers, but salaries were either paid to the French government, or distributed to the workers at rates significantly below those paid to locals. When Germany invaded the free zone in 1942, the workers were conscripted by German occupation troops to work in weapon factories. Besides harrowing working conditions, the men suffered physical and mental trauma due to prolonged exile and mistreatment by their superiors. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

Literary news from Palestine, Egypt, and Latin America!

This week, our Editors-at-Large bring us news of a “literary cartography” of Palestine, the most recent literary fairs and festivals in Egypt, and censorship of Latin American authors in Florida. Read on to learn more!

Carol Khoury, Editor-at-Large for Palestine and the Palestinians, reporting from Palestine

Despite the burgeoning array of literary endeavors in support of Gaza, this dispatch aims to shed light on a profoundly comprehensive initiative. Back in July 2023, when we unveiled our coverage of the podcast entitled “Country of Words,” conceived and orchestrated by Refqa Abu-Remaileh, little did we fathom the vastness of Refqa’s overarching vision under the same title.

Country or Words: A Transnational Atlas for Palestinian Literature” was inaugurated by Stanford University in the last weeks of 2023. Rooted in the constellation paradigm within literature, this digital-born project aspires to retrace and remap the global narrative of Palestinian literature throughout the twentieth century, traversing the Arab world, Europe, North America, and Latin America. Nestled at the confluence of literary history, periodical studies, and digital humanities, “Country of Words” establishes a networked locus for the data and narrative fragments of a literature in constant motion, harmonizing porous, interrupted, disconnected, and discontinuous fragments into a resilient, open-ended literary chronicle.

READ MORE…

Winter 2024: Highlights from the Team

Get excited to dip into our Winter 2024 issue with these highlights from our team!

Ilya Kaminsky’s “Reading Dante in Ukraine” makes an impassioned case for the crucial role of art amid the horrors of war. What we need, as Dante’s journey shows us, is to defend ourselves with it: a tune to walk to, even in the underworld, as long as one still walks. In Miklós Vámos’s “Electric Train,”  translated by Ági Bori‚ the question-answer format gives the piece levity and rhythm, and the counterpoint of the humor interplaying with the troubled relationships brings it powerful depth. I found wisdom in the wry humor of Jaime Barrios Carrillo’s poems in David Unger’s translation. I love the image of angels spending the evening in their hotel rooms, ironing their enormous white wings.

—Ellen Elias-Bursac, Contributing Editor

The masterful language in Ági Bori’s translation, as though hand-holding the reader through a children’s story, and the simple act of gifting a present in the story belie the depth and complexity of emotional turmoil that wash over Miklós Vámos’s characters in “Electric Train,” a turmoil that seemingly hits out of nowhere like a wave yet in fact stems from a deep brewing well of built up memories and tensions. The contrast highlights all the more the challenges, and perhaps even limits, of recognizing and understanding another’s intentions, experiences, and feelings.

Rage, sorrow, resilience, helplessness, hope, a hunger for life and love and connection, grief, a numbing screaming despair: it is difficult to put into words the sensations that ran through me as I read Samer Abu Hawwash’s “My People” in Huda J. Fakhreddine’s translation. It cannot possibly compare to the feelings and thoughts of Samer Abu Hawwash and the Palestinian people, to the reality of having each day and moment narrow down to dried bread and tear tracks.

I was intrigued by Laura Garmeson’s discussion, in her review of Brazilian author Itamar Vieira Junior’s Crooked Plow, of the tongue as “both creator and destroyer. It has the power to make and unmake worlds.” It is a through line in Crooked Plow that reminds us of the power and possibilities of language and story to shape our lives. Garmeson’s review, in a way, is also a fire that kindles awareness of Itamar Vieira Junior’s work and the legacies, realities, and possible futures for Afro-Brazilian communities. The tongue as symbol also feels like a through line between these pieces in their rumination on what is gained and lost and pushed aside in the choices we make of what, how, and when we say (or write) things, or not.

—Julie Shi, Senior Executive Assistant

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

Literary news from Guatemala, Ireland, and Kenya!

This week, our editors are bringing news of book launches, emerging talents, one of the biggest literary awards in the world. Read on to find out more!

Rubén López, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Guatemala

Last December, Argentinian author Dolores Reyes visited Guatemala to discuss her latest novel Miseria (Misery) and the process of creating it. It was the author’s second time in the country, her first visit being the occasion of the literature festival Centroamérica Cuenta (Central America Narrates) in 2021.

I arrived early at Catafixia, an independent bookstore in Guatemala City downtown—the only one with its own editorial house. There was a small group, perhaps thirty enthusiastic people, waiting for the author to arrive. Carmen Lucía Alvarado and Luis Mendez Salinas—Catafixia’s founders, editors, and trusted libreros (booksellers)—arranged golden plastic chairs for the public and created a welcoming stage for Dolores.

When Dolores arrived, the audience was enraptured, viewing the beautifully hand-curated collection of books. People were quick to find their seats; some had to stand in the back because space was limited.

Dolores and Carmen then discussed how her novels Eartheater and Miseria portray the flagellum of missing persons in Argentina—in particular of abducted women. This issue is something that is terribly close to home in Guatemala, since during the process of state terrorism in the second half of the 20th century, more than 45,000 people were disappeared by State operators. Most of their families are still looking for them. Cometierra (the titular Eartheater), her main character, is a teenager with an ability to eat earth, in order to talk to the dead and find missing people. READ MORE…

Blog Editors’ Highlights: Winter 2024

Taking a closer look at Asymptote’s milestone issue!

Not sure where to start with our tremendous fiftieth issue? Our blog editors talk their favourites.

In its overarching theme of “Coexistence,” Asymptote’s monumental 50th issue draws together the quiet, the forgotten, and the unseen, allowing us to inhabit worlds that are not our own. From the bright unease of Elena Garro’s “The Week of Colors” (tr. Christine Legros), to the serene, dynamic stanzas of Eva Ribich’s Along the Border (tr. Julian Anderson), to the dedicated love in Almayrah A. Tiburon’s “Keyboard and Breastfeed” (tr. Bernard Capinpin), Asymptote’s Winter 2024 Issue examines the relationships we have with each other, with the world, and with ourselves.

Dark and unflinching, Maria Grazia Calandrone’s Your Little Matter delves into the ambiguous history of the author’s mother Lucia, her parents’ joint suicide in Rome, and all that was left behind. Central to the piece are physical mementos—two old photographs of Lucia, a list of items left in a suitcase, clippings from a newspaper—from which Calandrone pieces together the story of her parents’ lives, revealing aspects of a woman her daughter barely knew. Alongside the photos come memories passed down and memories created, as Calandrone pieces together the life of a young woman who was nearly forgotten. 

Translated by Antonella Lettieri, Your Little Matter is a work of empathy—of putting on a parent’s shoes, of imagining the pain and the love of the life that led to yours. The lives of our parents are distant, disconnected from our own. Even for those who knew their parents, the question of who they were before we existed can be haunting. What did you lose when you had me? What did you gain? It can be a self-centered venture, as relationships with parents often are, and Your Little Matter simultaneously veers away from and embraces this selfishness. Who were you? Why did you have to leave? I want to remember you; I want you to be remembered. Calandrone’s condemnation of the society that killed her parents; the somber moments spent amidst photographs, imagining; the love she holds for someone who can only be known retroactively—these elements draw you into Lucia’s life, her story, unforgettable. READ MORE…

Our Milestone 50th Issue Has Landed!

Featuring Emily Wilson, Ilya Kaminsky, Michael Cronin, Nam Le, and Samer Abu Hawwash alongside new work from 35 countries!

Living today is a feat of coexistence. In Me | You | Us, our Winter 2024 editionAsymptote’s landmark fiftieth!—people seek ways to equably share a world of jostling values, languages, and stories. Embracing the rare spotlight in mainstream English media almost never afforded translators, Emily Wilson discusses her groundbreaking translation of Homer and its place in the constellation of existing English Odyssies. Public intellectual Michael Cronin makes the case for translation’s centrality in the construction of new narratives necessary for the continued survival of our species amid other species. Headlining our Special Feature themed on coexistence, Nam Le’s frenzied poems are just as preoccupied with Carl Linnaeus’s taxonomy in the original Latin as they are driven to distraction by the insufficiency of that same scanty alphabet against the tonal splendor of Vietnamese. In Ilya Kaminsky’s Brave New World Literature contribution, truckloads of Dante’s Inferno being delivered to a besieged Kharkiv speak to a different, tenuous, and moving, coexistence. As support for Ukraine wavers in the US, we at Asymptote have kept up our coverage of the region also through Elina Sventsytska’s devastating poetry, a review of Oksana Lutsyshyna’s latest award-winning novel in English translation, and a dispatch about the chilling aftermath of a Russian dissident’s self-immolation. Alongside these, I invite you to discover the Mexican pioneer of magical realism Elena Garro, Palestinian poet Samer Abu Hawwash, Cuban artist Gertrudis Rivalta Oliva, and Romanian playwright Edith Negulici amid never-before-published work from a whopping thirty-five countries. All of it is illustrated by the Netherlands-based guest artist Ehud Neuhaus.

Winter-2024-v9
If, as Taiwanese author Lin Yaode put it, “literature’s history is really a history of readers of literature,” the history of Asymptote might also be in part a tale of its readers. But why should it stop there? To all collaborators and supporters, past and present, I say gratefully: this one is for you! As hinted at by last year’s closures of The White Review and Freeman’s—both similarly prestigious journals with a focus on world literature—existence (by which I mean mere survival) has not been easy. We made it to our 1st, 2nd, 3rd . . . and to our 50th edition because of you.

If you are an avid reader of the magazine and haven’t yet signed up, we hope you’ll consider becoming an official sustaining or masthead member today for as little as USD5 a month in addition to subscribing to our socials (FacebookXInstagramThreads) and our monthly Book Club. If you represent an institution advocating for a country’s literature, check out this (slightly outdated) slideshow and get in touch to sponsor a country-themed Special Feature, as FarLit has recently done. (The deadline to submit to our paid Faroese Special Feature is February 15th, 2024; the guidelines and a new call for reviewers to contribute to our monthly What’s New in Translation column can be found here). If you work for a translation program, prize, or residency, consider advertising through our myriad platforms, including our newly launched “Upcoming Opportunities in Translation” column. And, finally, if you’d like to join us behind the scenes in advocating for a more inclusive world literature, we just announced our very first recruitment drive of the year (deadline to apply: February 1st, 2024). Thank you for your readership and your support. We can’t wait to hear from you!

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

Literary news from Central America, the Philippines, and the Romanian diaspora!

Join us this in this week of literary news from Central America, the Philippines, and the Romanian diaspora! From recent publications of women writers, to a collection of electronic-inspired poetry, to movements against the ongoing genocide in Gaza, read on to learn more.

José García Escobar, Editor-at-Large, reporting on Central America 

In December, Nicaraguan novelist and poet Gioconda Belli announced that Libros VISOR had just published a 900-page book collecting all her poetry books. Titled Toda la poesía (1974-2020), it includes a prologue written by Spanish poet Raquel Lanseros. This publication came only weeks after Belli won this year’s Premio Reina Sofía de Poesía Iberoamericana, one of the most prestigious awards given to poets of the Spanish language. 

Earlier, in late November, Alfaguara put out a book entitled Desde el centro de América, Miradas alternativas, which includes short stories by twenty one Central American women. The collection includes the likes of Nicté Sierra, Marta Sandoval, and Ixsu’m Antonieta Gonzáles Choc, from Guatemala; María Eugenia Ramos and Jessica Isla, from Honduras; and Madeline Mendienta and Carmen Ortega, from Nicaragua. The book was put together by writer and researcher Gloria Hernández, who, in 2022, received Guatemala’s highest literary honor: the Miguel Ángel Asturias National Prize in Literature. 

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

Literary news from North Macedonia, Mexico, and Palestine!

This week, our editors around the world bring news as to how different literary initiatives and publications are help shaping the present. From writers who embody multiculturalism and unity, to works of solidarity and hope, read on to see how writers, readers, and artists are working to shed light on what matters.

Sofija Popovska, Editor-at-Large, reporting from North Macedonia

“Rarely has any Macedonian poet attracted as much attention among theorists, literary historians, and philologists as [Kočo] Racin. Racin was . . . a pioneer in the artistic expression of the mother tongue, . . . an example of an ideal revolutionary and, in the end, a victim. He was the most honorable and most honored thing that the Macedonians had in the period between the two wars,” writes Goran Kalogjera, a prominent Croatian comparatist and scholar of Macedonian studies in his book, Pogled otstrana. Racin (1908 – 1943) (Side view. Racin (1908 – 1943)). Recently, this important biography was translated into Macedonian by Slavčo Koviloski, and published by Makedonika Litera Press.

Kosta Apostolov Solev is a canonical figure in Macedonian literature, hailed by some as the founder of modern Macedonian poetry. He is best known under his penname, Kočo Racin, which was derived from the name of his lover, Rahilka Firfova-Raca—a gesture indicative of his support for the socialist women’s movement. He himself was a political activist, participating in the translation of the Communist Manifesto into Macedonian, and acting as editor for several communist magazines. His political leanings had contributed to his mysterious and untimely death; mortally shot by a printing-house entrance guard in June 1943, some speculate that Racin had been purposefully targeted by the communist party, having fallen out of favor with them around 1940. However, his activism effectuated his ties to other cultures, enriching his literary oeuvre. Aside from his mother tongue, he wrote texts in Bulgarian and Serbian, and was published all over the Balkans. Kalogjera stresses this multilingual, multicultural aspect of Racin’s output in Pogled otstrana, noting his importance to Croatian culture. READ MORE…

Poetry and Resistance in Iran

Words that are spoken are forgotten, and treatises lie unopened on the shelf, while lines of poetry live forever.

Since 2022, the Woman, Life, Freedom movement has made historic advances in fighting for the rights of Iranian girls and women. With protests that have ripped all across the world, the demonstrations have continued Iran’s long tradition of fusing literature with politics, showing that where people and ideas go, poetry soon follows. Here, Cy Strom, co-editor of the forthcoming anthology, Woman, Life, Freedom: Poems for the Iranian Revolution (open for submissions!)discusses the texts, songs, and slogans that make up the fabric of contemporary revolution.

The Iranian revolution that began in September 2022 responded to no political manifesto. Instead, it flared up to an unforgettable line of people’s poetry: “Zan, Zandeghi, Azadi!” This is how “Woman, Life, Freedom” sounds in Persian.

In Kurdish, the language in which this slogan was first spoken, its words are “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî.” That is what Mahsa Jina Amini—the Iranian-Kurdish woman whose brutal death catalyzed the protests—would have heard. Protestors in Iran continue to pay respect to the slogan’s origins when they chant both the Kurdish and Persian words, even when Kurdish is not their mother tongue. In both languages, the words of this slogan are balanced and graceful, the rhythms assertive. It is people’s poetry.

The slogan was first circulated among the women militia fighters in Rojava, the western Kurdish lands by the Syrian-Turkish border, and spread through the writings of Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Activists and protestors in the streets have now taken these three words as the name for this first ever feminist revolution, and a statement of the best in hopes and ideals for all people everywhere.

Within days of its outbreak, Iran’s “Woman, Life, Freedom” revolution also found its anthem. Amidst Persian-language reworkings of the World War II partisan song “Bella Ciao” (which kept its wildly incongruous Italian refrain) and the 1970s Chilean insurgent march “El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido,” a string of found poetry began to sound out in Iran, artfully arranged and set to music by singer-songwriter Shervin Hajipour. The people in the streets quickly taught themselves to sing this winding melody, which begins as a murmur but gathers force until a last intake of breath pushes out the words: “Azadi! Azadi!” Freedom. Hajipour assembled the lyrics to this song, which he called “Baraye” (“For” or “For the Sake Of”), from people’s tweets. Some of these were political slogans, some were complaints, some were sweet dreams: “For a dance in the alley. . . For the dreams of the dumpster kids. . . For the jailed beautiful minds. . . For the tranquilizers and insomnia.” The song is said to have gained forty million views in forty-eight hours, and it earned Hajipour six days in prison with the threat of more to come. In February 2023, “Baraye” also earned the first ever Grammy awarded for the best song for social change. READ MORE…

Upcoming Opportunities in Translation

For our final post of the year, we decided to compile a list of opportunities for all you translators out there to apply to. Onward and upward!

Opportunities abound for the emerging translator!  Just in time for the year-end break—this will be our final post of the year—we sifted through the latest ones and compiled the best and timeliest for our new one-stop hub, “Upcoming Opportunities in Translation.” See you on the other side of the New Year!

AWARDS

SARAH MAGUIRE PRIZE

The 2024 Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation is now open for submissions. This international prize is awarded every two years to a translated book of poetry by a “poet living beyond Europe”. The winners will receive £3000, to be divided between the poet and their translator, and will be included in a Poetry Book Society promotion alongside up to seven other shortlisted titles. Past winners include Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish and Chinese poet Yang Lian.

Founded in 2020, the Prize commemorates the Poetry Translation Center’s founder, renowned poet Sarah Maguire, and seeks to celebrate the art of poetry in translation, which the PTC calls “the lifeblood of poetry”. Applications close on Monday, January 1st, 2024.

Apply here.

WORLD LITERATURE  TODAY – STUDENT TRANSLATION PRIZE

World Literature Today offers an annual competition for students enrolled in translation studies programs worldwide, and applications are open! Consistent with WLT’s commitment to serving international and university communities alike, the Student Translation Prize seeks to recognize the work of emerging translators from anywhere in the world.

Entries should include a piece of translated prose (up to 1,000 words) or three pieces of poetry, along with a cover letter. $200 will be awarded to one prose translation and one poetry translation. Both will also be published online in the summer.

Applications are due January 11th, 2024.

Apply here.

MO HABIB TRANSLATION PRIZE IN PERSIAN LITERATURE

The Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at UW is thrilled to announce that the Mo Habib Translation Prize in Persian Literature is open for submissions for its second cycle. In partnership with the Mo Habib Memorial Foundation and Deep Vellum Publishing, this prize aims to commemorate the life of Mohammed Habib through the celebration of Persian literary works.

This cycle will focus on Persian poetry from the 10th century CE to the present day. Bi- or multilingual projects are more than welcome, as are collections of poems from more than one author. Applicants should submit a cover letter, a CV, and a sample of the proposed translation by March 1st2024. The winning translation will be awarded $10,000 and will be published by Deep Vellum.

Apply here. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

Literary updates from The Philippines, Central America, and North Macedonia!

In this week of literary updates, our news range from recent award winners to support for incarcerated writers by PEN centres around the globe. Read further to catch up on the Guadalajara International Book fair, PEN Philippines’ statement on ‘The Day of the Imprisoned Writer,’ and a new contribution to Macedonian cultural studies!

Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Editor-at-Large, reporting from the Philippines

On ‘The Day of the Imprisoned Writer,’ commemorated annually November 15, PEN Philippines joined PEN centres across the globe in issuing a statement calling for the release of Filipino poets Amanda Socorro Lacaba Echanis, Adora Faye de Vera, and Benito C. Quilloy, children’s book author Eduardo Sarmiento, and journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio—incarcerated writers who have been arrested on trumped-up charges and detained for years. “We continue to raise our voices to call for their release, and for the Philippine government to serve these detainees the justice that is due them under our system of laws—as is but right,” the statement declared. 

PEN centres globally have also demanded the release of Iryna Danylovych (Occupied Crimea), María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez (Cuba), Soulaimane Raissouni (Morocco), and Go Sherab Gyatso (Occupied Tibet). “PEN Philippines has been championing this cause for the past 65 years, and we continue to uphold that advocacy,” PEN Philippines furthers.

READ MORE…