Posts filed under 'asymptote podcast'

Asymptote Podcast: In Conversation with Kristin Vego

Just in time for the weekend, a sparkling conversation with current contributor Kristin Vego!

In the second podcast episode centering on contributors to Asymptote’s landmark 50th issue, Danish-Norwegian author Kristin Vego joins Podcast Editor Vincent Hostak in conversation. Her story, “All Things Lovely,” as translated by Jennifer Russell, represents her debut in the English language. Vego’s story also arrives at a moment when Norwegian literature is receiving global attention with last year‘s Nobel Prize in Literature going to Jon Fosse. Kristin Vego speaks of the “ghost of childhood” inhabiting a story of a young girl leaning into adulthood during a summer holiday within a Nordic landscape. Russell’s translation of Kristin Vego’s story sits alongside new work from 35 countries and 21 languages in the Winter 2024 issue, dedicated to the theme of coexistence. Listen to the podcast now.

Asymptote Podcast: In Conversation with David Unger

The Asymptote Podcast returns after a hiatus of two years!

Esteemed translator David Unger joins our new Podcast Editor Vincent Hostak for a conversation with readings of the poetry of Jaime Barrios Carillo. Born in Guatemala City in 1954 and living in Stockholm since 1981, Carrillo is known principally as a writer and columnist. His Two Poems from the Spanish Language volume Ángeles sin dios (Angels Without God; Ediciones Fenix), make their English language debut in the milestone 50th issue of  Asymptote, himself well acquainted with the social and political landscapes of Guatemala, provides rare insight into Carillo’s vision and style, influenced by the tradition of what Chilean Nicanor Parra called the Anti-poem. David Unger’s translations of Carrillo’s Two Poems sit alongside new work from 35 countries and 21 languages in the Winter 2024 issue dedicated to the theme of coexistence christened “Me | You | Us.” Listen to the podcast now.

Asymptote Podcast: In Conversation with Bethlehem Attfield

Africa may have gotten itself another Nobel laureate, but African vernacular literature still needs advocacy, according to Bethlehem Attfield

It’s Steve Lehman’s final episode as our podcast editor, and we’re going out with a bang: a timely interview with the Ethiopian writer and translator Bethlehem Attfield. In this episode, Bethlehem talks with Steve about co-translating Mulugeta Alebachew’s short story “Heaven Without Prickly Pears” for our Summer 2021 issue. She also discusses the lack of representation of African vernacular languages in English translation, and her mission to change that by advocating for Ethiopian literature on the world stage. The episode wraps up with an excerpt of the short story, read first in the original Amharic by the author, followed by Bethlehem with her English cotranslation. Listen to the podcast now!

Asymptote Podcast: In Conversation with Kári Tulinius

Writing poetry is part of what it means to be human

Summer has arrived (in the northern hemisphere, anyway), and today we’re heading to Iceland! In this episode, Icelandic writer Kári Tulinius chats with podcast editor Steve Lehman about growing up in Iceland, the advantages of a tight-knit literary community, and how writing poetry is part of what it means to be human. Then, Kári reads one of his poems published in our just-released Summer issue, “Upon seeing Snæfellsjökull Glacier from an idling bus,” in both the original Icelandic and in Larissa Kyzer’s English translation. Listen to the podcast now!

Asymptote Podcast: In Conversation with Padma Viswanathan

Find out how Padma Viswanathan stumbled into translation and why she loves Brazilian literature

Today on the show, the award-winning author and translator Padma Viswanathan joins podcast editor Steve Lehman to talk about her love for Brazilian literature, the connection between writing and translating, and how translation helps her form an even closer relationship to Portuguese. Afterwards, stick around to hear an excerpt from the short story “The Woman Who Didn’t Know How to Die,” written by Adelice Souza and translated by Padma Viswanathan, in both Portuguese and English. You can read the full story, and many other great works in translation, at asymptotejournal.com.

Asymptote Podcast: That Which is Found and Gained through Translation

Translation as bridge and compulsion

Podcast Editor Layla Benitez-James reports back from the Unamuno Poetry Festival in Madrid with an excerpt from a panel she moderated, titled “TransAtlantic: Translation as Bridge and Compulsion.” She also explores the dynamic lecture on translation given by Jorge Vessel, poet and translator of Desperate Literature: A Bilingual Anthology—a book highlighting, rather than what is lost, that which is found and gained through the art of translation. Join us for all the happy accidents that can spring forth from this wonderful and sometimes eccentric practice, and get inspired in your own experiments with language.

Fall 2014: Interlinked Dimensions of Spacetime

The Fall 2014 issue of Asymptote demonstrates an exceptional thematic cohesion across genre, language, location, and time.

Around this time, equipped with a new legal advisor (the extremely efficient Win Bassett), a small group is formally set up within our team to look into the feasibility of Asymptote becoming a non-profit organization in the USA. This makes most sense for tax-deductibility, since our largest readership, outnumbering the second largest demographic by a ratio of three to one, is American. It would take one and a half years for me to reach a definitive decision, but I decide in the end not to take the plunge. To become a non-profit, a board would first have to be formed, and all major decisions about the journal’s direction would have to be run by this board (which would mostly comprise Americans). Had I worked so hard for the magazine’s survival only to surrender its reins to others? Aren’t there already more than enough American mediators of otherness? I’m also wary because of what one board member of another online magazine has told me in confidence: being bound to a board has held that magazine back from reaching its full potential. We do, however, thanks to Win Bassett, Erin Stephens-North, Lynette Lee, and Eric M. B. Becker, succeed in acquiring fiscal sponsorship with Fractured Atlas on August 26, 2014. This is a breakthrough: For the first time, we are tax-deductible for American donors, removing one more barrier standing in the way of support. Here to introduce the Fall 2014 issue is Assistant Editor Erik Noonan.

Published in sync with the release of the inaugural episode of the Asymptote Podcast—whose producer Emma Jacobs suggests that the mythical stories we tell ourselves are really signs of “our inability to map our own minds”—the Fall 2014 issue of Asymptote sets the reader afloat through a tesseract located among the interlinked dimensions of spacetime.

In Shi Tiesheng’s “The Year of Being Twenty-One,” that mapless place masquerades in public life as a monotheistic deity: “I did see God, one day—but he went by a different name, and that name was the mind,” Shi writes. “In the hazy patches of science; in the chaos of destiny; you can only turn to your own mind. Everything we believe in—no matter what that might be—comes from the promptings and the guidance of our minds.”    READ MORE…

Asymptote Podcast: Language and Dance (Part I)

Discover Eurythmy, a form of dance created in the 1920s by philosopher Rudolph Steiner, in our latest podcast!

In this first installment of a two-parter about language and dance, Podcast Editor Dominick Boyle speaks with Switzerland-based dancer and choreographer Kincsö Szabó, who trained in Eurythmy, a form of dance created in the 1920s by philosopher Rudolph Steiner. In Eurythmy, aspects of language are taken as direct impulses for movement in a codified way—certain letters have certain sounds, and these sounds have movements associated with them. Szabó says that this process helps dancers to understand abstract concepts in a more natural and embodied way. Take a listen to the podcast now!
Music used under a Creative Commons License from the Free Music Archive.

Asymptote Podcast: Language, Meet Arto Lindsay

In this episode of the Asymptote Podcast, Editor-at-Large Lara Norgaard speaks with the experimental Brazilian-American musician, Arto Lindsay.

Music and literature meet at the crossroads of Portuguese and English—what happens? Arto Lindsay. In this episode of the Asymptote Podcast, Editor-at-Large Lara Norgaard speaks with the experimental Brazilian-American musician of DNA and Ambitious Lovers fame. They discuss his unique combination of Brazilian and American influences which range from candomblé to Emily Dickinson. Together, they unpack his expansive and multilayered works while reflecting on the role of language and translation in negotiating identity.

Produced by: Lara Norgaard
Editor and Host: Dominick Boyle
Audio Editor: Dominick Boyle

Music: “Ilha Dos Prazeres” “Unpair” and “Seu Pai” by Arto Lindsay, used with permission.

 

Asymptote Podcast: Science Fiction

A new episode goes live!

In this month’s episode we look at science fiction from all over the world. We’ll start with the Hugo awards, the Oscars of science fiction, where a group calling themselves the Rabid Puppies is trying to take over the ceremony to protest diversity in science fiction which they see as destroying the genre. To prove them wrong, we’ll look at fantastic works from America, Russia, Cuba, and Nigeria that tell stories about dreaming robots, alien plagues, time travel, monstrous sea creatures, and the perils of extra terrestrial communication. This is the Asymptote podcast.

Editor: Mirza Puric
Voice Actors: Piyali Syam, Alessio Frank, and Rron Karahoda.

Music: Spare by Ono, Gotta Run by Wahyas, Let it Me by Drag Sounds, I Was Born on the Wrong Day by Cate Le Bon, Mary Bumble Bee by Purling Hiss Here, Masked Laughter by Dalek, Devil Do by Holly Go Lightly.

All music provided under a Creative Commons license from freemusicarchive.com

Works read: Space Raptor Butt Invasion by Chuck Tingle, Robot Dreams by Issac Asimov, Moom by Nnedi Okparanta, Memories of the Future by Sigizmund Khrizhanovsky, The Cosmonaut by Angel Arango.

Asymptote Podcast: Literature in Transit

A new episode goes live!

What ever happened to savoring the moment, or better yet, the moment in between two others? Why don’t stories ever focus on the euphoria of transition? There’s a lot to be learned in between point A and point B that we might not recognize. Today on the Asymptote Podcast, Blog Editor, Allegra Rosenbaum brings us literature in transit; literature from the places in between places, where the rules and regulations that govern our lives disappear behind us, as new ones loom up ahead. Allegra has spent most of her life traveling and with the help of Ezra Pound, Blaise Cendrars, Agustín Fernández Mallo, and Teju Cole, she tries to figure out what is going on in those moments of transition. This is the Asymptote Podcast.