Posts filed under 'Food Writing'

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

This week, we bring to you literary news from Palestine, India, and Central America!

Want to find out what’s happening in the literary world? This week, our Editors-at-Large bring you news from Palestine, where a landmark issue of World Literature Today features nearly two dozen of the most eminent Palestinian writers; India, where lockdown is slowly being lifted, and bookstores begin to bustle; and Central America, where writers from Guatemala to Costa Rica are releasing new books. Curious about this wide-ranging itinerary? Read on to find out more! 

Carol Khoury, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Palestine

“While most writers offer their writing to the masses, Palestinian writers offer their very souls,” writes the Guest Editor Yousef Khanfar in his introduction to “Palestine Voices,” the Summer 2021 issue of World Literature Today (released earlier this month). Throughout its ninety-five-year publishing history, World Literature Today  (published at Oklahoma University), has never devoted a cover feature—let alone a dossier—exclusively to the literature, art, and culture of Palestine. Even when WLT dedicated an issue in 1986 to “Literatures of the Middle East: A Fertile Crescent,” Palestinian writers were conspicuously absent from the lineup, reveals Editor Daniel Simon. Indeed, in Mona Mikhail’s essay introducing the 1986 issue, one of the most pivotal events during the modern era of the Middle East—the Palestinian Nakba that led to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948—isn’t even mentioned.

With less attachment to the Nakba but more freedom for exploration and imagination, the expanded issue, at 128 pages, “represents a long-overdue—and especially timely—attempt to remedy this deficit” writes Simon. “As with other recent dossiers dedicated to so-called “stateless” literatures, WLT’s Summer 2021 issue recognizes an autonomous literary tradition that dates back centuries and now, in the diaspora, is one of the most cosmopolitan literatures in the world.” The voices gathered in “Palestine Voices,” according to Khanfar, “speak a universal language: one of life filled with human dignity that celebrates a rich cultural heritage and vibrant present along with aspirations for freedom, justice, and hope for a better future.”

Nearly two dozen of the most eminent Palestinian writers and poets are gathered in WLT’s Summer 2021 issue, along with the work of twenty renowned artists and photographers. Since a number of the pieces are web exclusive, it is all worth it to explore the issue online, and to appreciate the well-chosen art works that compliment the texts. As “colonization slowly dehumanizes Palestine and the Palestinians,” according to Khanfar, Simon believes that the work by the writers featured in this WLT issue “rehumanizes a people who have much to offer the world.” At any rate, trust them when they say “these voices are designed to captivate and not to convince.” READ MORE…

Idiomatic Agony and Collective Vision: Izidora Angel on Bringing International Literature to the Forefront

I want to convince all publishers that putting the translator’s name on the cover of the book is the right thing to do . . .

Chicago-based Izidora Angel is one amongst only a handful of translators working to bring Bulgarian literature to English-language readers. Her experiences as an emerging translator working in an under-represented language prompted Angel to seek the support and knowledge of her peers, and what began as an informal workshop with fellow translators Lucina Schell and Jason Grunebaum has evolved into an international network of literary translators who seek to share resources and mentor each other, in addition to bringing literature in translation to a wider audience. Third Coast Translators Collective co-founder Angel spoke with Asymptote about forming the collective, the importance of community, activism, and her best translation practices.

—Sarah Timmer Harvey, August 2019

Sarah Timmer Harvey (STH): Can you tell me about Third Coast Translators Collective and how it came to be?

Izidora Angel (IA): When I joined the group in early 2016, it wasn’t yet the Third Coast Translators Collective (TCTC), it was still more or less an informal group gathering of Chicago-land translators started by Lucina Schell, who translates from the Spanish, and Jason Grunebaum, who translates from the Hindi. But people kept wanting to join, and we all had this great chemistry, so we thought, why not make it official? Have a proper name, a mission and vision, a website, a digital presence, readings. Now there’s over thirty of us; it feels like a powerful entity.

STH: Why is being part of a collective important to you?

IA: Community is essential, regardless of what it might be that is bringing you together. Humans are social animals, and we need that connection for life. As translators, especially if we are translating from at-risk or vulnerable languages like I am, belonging to a group like this is integral for collaboration, workshopping, and knowledge sharing. Including minority languages like Bulgarian helps to shape the mission of a group like TCTC in a really important way. READ MORE…

Jamón, Jambon, Ham

"Each product comes from same part of a pig: the upper hind leg where thigh becomes rear. The consensus ends there."

In the 1992 melodrama Jamón Jamón a lovers’ quarrel turns violent. Class tensions drive the conflict. Jose Luis’ (Jorge Molla) parents own a factory. He falls in love with one of the workers, Silvia (Penelope Cruz), and gets her pregnant. His parents reject their plan for marriage and hire the fit, sexy Raul (Javier Bardem) to seduce the young woman. Raul sells jamón, with dreams of bullfighting and underwear modeling. In a spate of anger, Jose Luis arrives in Raul’s trailer with a club in hand. Legs of jamón hang from the ceiling. To defend himself, Raul grabs one of the hams and uses it as a weapon. Jose Luis meets a slick, salty end.

The film retains its Spanish-language title in its American release, with a parenthetical (Ham & Ham). Jamón Jamón evokes something aromatic, sensuous. The legs of ham that hang from the ceiling in Raul’s shop are lithe and firm. The translated title Ham & Ham highlights the campy humor of the movie, but misses on the sex appeal. The image conjured is not of golden and burgundy cured meat and fat, but of the pink, clove-studded, maple-glazed behemoths featured at holiday feasts or Easter brunch. It’s more Jaime Lee Curtis than Javier Bardem. The French Jambon Jambon hardly fairs better, rousing images of the boulangerie staple: le parisien, two slices of cooked ham sandwiched between a half a baguette, slathered with butter.  READ MORE…

Cooking Her Way to the Top: Chef Rossi on Feminism and Kosher Hot Dogs

"Rossi tells a story that deeply satisfies the consumers’ appetite."

The Raging Skillet isn’t like other food writing. There are no pictures. Chef Rossi doesn’t bother with the finer points of locally sourced organic vegetables. The recipes rely on her own systems of measurement: a dollop, a shake, a shot, a coffee cup. She believes dishes will work out, even without weighing ingredients to the gram or composing the perfect image (and appropriate filter) for Instagram. The only weddings Rossi writes about are ones she caters. When she writes about cooking, it’s to describe flipping thousands of burgers or deboning a hundred pounds of salmon. Her patience is thin, her work ethic tough. READ MORE…