At the dawn of 2018, we are thrilled to bring you Asymptote’s seventh anniversary edition, “A Different Light.” In Aeschylus, the Lost, Albania’s Ismail Kadare imagines a “murky light” filtering through oiled window paper in the ancient workroom of the father of Greek tragedy. A conversation with acclaimed translator Daniel Mendelsohn reveals the “Homeric funneling” behind his latest memoir. Polish author Marta Zelwan headlines our Microfiction Special Feature, where meaning gleams through the veil of allegory. Light glows ever brighter in poet Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine’s “syntactically frenetic” Arachnid Sun; and in Erika Kobayashi’s fiction, nuclear devastation blazes from Hiroshima to Fukushima.

The light around us is sometimes blinding, sometimes dim, “like a dream glimpsed through a glass that’s too thick,” as Argentine writer Roberto Arlt puts it, channeling Paul to the Corinthians in The Manufacturer of Ghosts. Something dreamlike indeed shines in César Moro’s Equestrian Turtle, where “the dawn emerges from your lips,” and, as if in echo, Mexican writer Hubert Matiúwàa prophecies for his people’s children “a house made of dawn.” With Matiúwàa’s Mè’phàà and our first works from Amharic and Montenegrin, we've now published translations from exactly 100 languages!

Elsewhere, amid new work from 30 countries, American artist Tim Simonds puts a spotlight on the “cut-off parts of language, margins of words, and crumbs of conversation.” In the same vein, the enigmatic photographer Elephnt—our guest artist from Singapore—directs our gaze in unexpected ways to uncover beauty in everyday life. In the Interviews section, we meet Marius Burokas, an eloquent advocate from the periphery of world literature. Though Lithuanian writing “can only speak of a one-way influence” from English at the moment, it is by no means a “small literature”: “There are only writers who are not good enough,” Burokas provocatively suggests, “or writers who are not publicized enough.”

The same might apply to literature from The Gambia. There, Tijan M. Sallah tells us in an invaluable survey essay of his country’s emerging poets, the Timbooktoo Bookstore gathers the light of knowledge and inspires future generations of writers. One of these is Mariama Khan, who yearns for a stronger understanding of her ancestors, writing that she wishes she were a “Fulani born-again.” Her uncertainty about the past is reflected in Ouyang Jianghe’s poetry from China. As the sunset glimpsed from an airplane pierces “the double exposed/red and white of our minds,” Ouyang wonders what those who came before us think of our miraculous present.

Which brings us to our miraculous present: This past November brought the launch of the Asymptote Book Club, with our first monthly book club title (César Aira’s The Lime Tree) distributed to one hundred readers in December! If you’re based in Canada, the US, or the UK, consider signing up today to receive or send a loved one a surprise handpicked world literature title, drawn each month from the latest offerings by independent publishers! If you’re based elsewhere, you can still pledge your support for world literature by becoming a masthead member or a sustaining member; we are also inviting applications to our first recruitment drive of the year (Deadline: 5 Feb, 2018). However you choose to support Asymptote—even if it’s just spreading the word via Facebook or Twitter, downloading our issue flyer and putting it up in your cafe, university department, or local bookstore—know that we couldn’t have made it here without you!

—Lee Yew Leong, Editor-in-Chief

Editorial Team for Issue Jan 2018

Editor-in-Chief: Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)

Assistant Managing Editors: Sam Carter (USA), Mattea Cussel (Spain/Australia), Janani Ganesan (India), Rachael Pennington (Spain/UK) and Jacob Silkstone (Norway/UK)

Section Editors:
Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)
Aditi Machado (India/USA)
Joshua Craze (UK/USA)
Caridad Svich (USA/UK)
Ellen Jones (UK)
Henry Ace Knight (USA)
Ah-reum Han (South Korea/USA)
Eva Heisler (USA)

Editor of Microfiction Special Feature: Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)

Assistant Editors: Alexis Almeida (USA), Lizzie Buehler (USA), Victoria Livingstone (USA), Erik Noonan (USA), Chris Power (USA), P. T. Smith (USA), and Lin Chia-wei (Taiwan)

Senior Editor (Chinese): Chenxin Jiang (Germany/Hong Kong)

Contributing Editors:
Ellen Elias-Bursac (USA), Howard Goldblatt (USA), George Henson (USA), Aamer Hussein (Pakistan/UK), Sylvia Lin (Taiwan/USA), Sayuri Okamoto (Japan/Italy), Sim Yee Chiang (Singapore), Dylan Suher (USA) and Adrian West (USA)

Chinese Contributing Editor: Francis Li Zhuoxiong (Hong Kong/Taiwan)

Spanish Contributing Editor: Soledad Marambio (Chile/USA)

Translation Tuesdays Editor: Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)

Podcast Editor: Dominick Boyle (Switzerland/USA)

Art Director: Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)

Director, Educational Arm: Lindsay Semel (USA)

Editor-at-Large, Albania: Barbara Halla
Editor-at-large, Argentina: Sarah Moses 
Editor-at-large, Australia: Tiffany Tsao
Editor-at-large, Brazil: Lara Norgaard
Editor-at-large, Egypt: Omar El Adl
Editor-at-large, Guatemala: José García
Editor-at-large, Hong Kong: Charlie Ng Chak-Kwan
Editor-at-large, Hungary: Diána Vonnák
Editor-at-large, Indonesia: Norman Erikson
Editor-at-large, Iran: Poupeh Missaghi
Editors-at-large, Mexico: Paul Worley and Kelsey Woodburn 
Editor-at-large, Morocco: Hodna Nuernberg
Editor-at-large, Romania and Moldova: MARGENTO
Editor-at-large, Singapore: Theophilus Kwek
Editor-at-large, Spain: Manel Mula Ferrer
Editor-at-large, Slovakia: Julia Sherwood
Editor-at-large, South Africa: Alice Inggs
Editor-at-large, Taiwan: Vivian Chih
Editor-at-large, Tunisa: Jessie Stoolman


Masthead for Issue Jan 2018

Fiction: Lee Yew Leong
Nonfiction: Joshua Craze
Poetry: Aditi Machado
Drama: Caridad Svich
Criticism: Ellen Jones
Writers on Writers: Ah-reum Han
Microfiction Special Feature: Lee Yew Leong
Visual: Eva Heisler
Interviews: Henry Ace Knight
Illustrations and Cover: Elephnt

Chief Executive Assistant: Sasha Burik
Senior Executive Assistants: Alice Fischer and Cassie Lawrence
Executive Assistant: Sydney Sims

Asst. Blog Editors: Sarah Booker, Stefan Kielbasiewicz, and David Smith

Assistant Interviews Editor: Claire Jacobson

Guest Artist Liaison: Berny Tan

Chief Copy Editor: Laura Garmeson

Proofreaders: Laura Garmeson, Lorenzo Andolfatto, Catilin O’Neil, Noah Ross, and Lara Zammit

Technical Manager: József Szabó

English Social Media: Anaka Allen, Sohini Basak, and Kate Garrett

Spanish Social Media: Sergio Serrano

French Social Media: Filip Noubel

Chinese Social Media: Jiaoyang Li and Jessica Wang

Assistant Newsletter Editor: Maxx Hillery

Marketing Managers: Giorgos Kassiteridis and Marina Sofia

Chief Graphic Designer: Kyrstin Rodriguez

Graphic Designers: Eliza Chen, Geneve Ong, and Kari Simonsen

Communications Managers: Alexander Dickow and Emma Page

Business Developer: Duncan Lewis

Business Strategist: Nathaniel Jones

Incoming: Executive Assistant Jennifer Zhuang, Educational Arm Assistant Jasmine Gui, Responsive Layout Designer Ben Saff, and French Social Media Manager André Kapsas

Asymptote would like to acknowledge the support of: Rūta Nanartavičiūtė, Lithuanian Culture Institute, Richard Fishman, Deanne Tan, Mavis Tan, Will McGrath, Anton Hur, Emma Holland, Maíra Mendes Galvão, Tse Hao Guang, Madeline Jones, and Evelyn Chin.

For their generous donations, our heartfelt thanks go too to Brother Anthony of Taizé, Sidney Wade, Reif Larsen, Elisabeth Brock, Nicholas Glastonbury, Ruth Diver, Caroline West, Nora Bojar, William Justice, Margaret Jull Costa, Julie Hillery, Heidi Holzer, Devaki Khanna, Mark Cohen, Jeffrey Boyle, Velina Manolova, Mark Cohen, Tiffany Tsao, Margaret King, Daniel Hahn, Jee Leong Koh, Ellen Elias-Bursac, Amica Sciortino Nowlan, Ellen Block, Garcia Bertha, Pavlos Stavropoulos, Siobhan Mei, Amy Curtis, Monica Timms, Geoffrey Howes, and Anna Aresi.