Editor's Note

The world rewrites itself daily, unable to leave the past alone. As Trump’s relentless theatre once more monopolizes our gaze—proof, perhaps, of what Johanna Drucker, in her timely essay “Attention as Predation,” diagnoses as a civilization that is consumed even as it consumes—the question becomes what still endures beneath the smudged text of the present. Palimpsest, our Fall 2025 issue illustrated hauntingly by UK-based visual artist Jayoon Choi, turns to those deeper inscriptions: the faint, resistant traces that refuse to fade, the ghosts of meaning that survive the next rewrite.

In Amanda Michalopoulou’s “Desert,” Athens emerges as a manuscript of light and stone, its ruins glowing like marginalia of time. Carla Mühlhaus overlays the Black Dahlia murder and Andersen’s mermaid over Venice’s 2019 acqua alta, letting myth and crime shimmer beneath the rising waterline. Likewise, Barbara Köhler gives Homer's Penelope her overdue monologue—both weaver and mermaid surfacing from the sediment of male authorship to reclaim their narratives. From Kazakhstan, Marat Uali laments the vanishing of minority tongues, an anxiety echoed in Tim Brookes’s interview on his Endangered Alphabets Project, where each carved script becomes an act of remembrance. In William Heath’s sparkling update, Herodas gives us drama composed on papyri—reminding us that even the most fragile art can defy oblivion.

This issue’s wildcard Special Feature, “On Attention,” brings together thinkers and storytellers who resist the culture of erasure. Monika Vrečar asks whether poetry can still exist amid the static while Farah Ahamed, in an astute piece of film criticism on the Bollywood classic “Lagaan,” notes that the monsoon is also a season in the body. Elsewhere, Korean artists Koi and Hyungmee Shin—hailing from opposite sides of the 38th parallel—make masterful use of fabric to create radiant topographies of encounter, while Ecuadorian master Pablo Palacio’s “The Double and Singular Woman” (tr. Thomas Taylor) anatomizes the fractured identity of a pair of conjoined twins with a proto-modernist precision that feels radical in our own fragmented age. To read these works together is to experience literature’s own layered materiality.

If this issue has a thesis, it is that world literature does not replace; it accrues. Help us write the next layer: follow Asymptote on Facebook, X, Threads, our two Instagram feeds, in our daily blog and via our fortnightly newsletter; subscribe to our monthly Book Club; submit to the second installment of our “On Attention” Special Feature (as well as to our regular categories); and apply to join the team (deadline: November 1st). A final note for the record: László Krasznahorkai, this year’s Nobel laureate in literature, appeared in our pages twice—long before Stockholm called. If this kind of early, global advocacy matters to you, please become a sustaining or masthead member today—the vital margin note that keeps this palimpsest legible, and gloriously alive.

—Lee Yew Leong, Editor-in-Chief



Editorial Team for Issue October 2025

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

Assistant Managing Editors: Ella Dailey (France/USA), Veronica Gisondi (Italy), Hilary Ilkay (Canada), Sofija Popovska (North Macedonia), Kathryn Raver (France/USA), and Alex Tan (USA/Singapore)

Section Editors:
Lee Yew Leong (Thailand/Singapore)
Heather Green (USA)
M.L. Martin (USA)
Willem Marx (Italy/UK)
Caridad Svich (USA/UK)

Senior Assistant Editors: Chiara Gilberti (Germany/Italy) and Michelle Chan Schmidt (Ireland)

Assistant Editors: Sam Bowden (USA), Bernard Capinpin (Philippines), Sabrina Fountain (USA), Danielle Janess (USA), Sophie Grace Lellman (USA), Sarah Roth (USA), Catherine Xin Xin Yu (Canada/Italy), Daniel Yadin (USA), Junyi Zhou (USA), and Lin Chia-Wei (Taiwan) 

Assistant Interview Editor: Sarah Gear

Contributing Editors: Ellen Elias-Bursac (USA), Aamer Hussein (UK), Sim Yee Chiang (Singapore), Dylan Suher (USA), and Adrian West (USA)

Art Director: Lee Yew Leong (Thailand/Singapore)

Editor-at-large, Bahrain: Amal Sarhan
Editor-at-large, Bulgaria: Andriana Hamas
Editor-at-large, China: Hongyu Jasmine Zhu
Editor-at-large, Greece: Christina Chatzitheodorou
Editor-at-large, Guatemala: José García Escobar
Editor-at-large, Hong Kong: Charlie Ng Chak-Kwan
Editors-at-large, India: Zohra Salih and Sayani Sarkar
Editor-at-large, Italy: Veronica Gisondi
Editor-at-large, Kenya: Wambua Muindi
Editor-at-large, Nigeria: Bethlehem Attfield
Editor-at-large, North Macedonia: Sofija Popovska
Editor-at-large, Mexico: René Esaú Sánchez
Editors-at-large, Palestine: Carol Khoury and Shatha Abd El Latif
Editor-at-large, Philippines: Alton Melvar M. Dapanas
Editor-at-large, Romania and Moldova: MARGENTO
Editor-at-large, Sweden: Linnea Gradin
Editor-at-large, USA: Mary Noorlander
Editor-at-large, Uzbekistan: Filip Noubel
Editor-at-large, Vietnamese Diaspora: Thuy Dinh


Masthead for Issue October 2025

Fiction and Interview: Lee Yew Leong
Poetry: M.L. Martin
Nonfiction: Willem Marx
Drama: Caridad Svich
Visual: Heather Green
Outsiders and On Attention Special Features: Lee Yew Leong
Illustrations and Cover: Jayoon Choi

Assistant Managing Editor (supervising Assistant Editors): Alex Tan

Assistant Managing Editors (supervising Editors-at-Large): Kathryn Raver, Veronica Gisondi, and Sofija Popovska

Assistant Managing Editor (overseeing blog production): Hilary Ilkay

Assistant Managing Editor (overseeing issue production): Ella Dailey

Chief Executive Assistant: Dina Famin
 
Senior Executive Assistants: Julie Shi, Meenakshi Ajit, and M.M. Pinky

Executive Assistant: Haeri Lee

Blog Editors: Xiao Yue Shan, Bella Creel, and Meghan Racklin

Art Director: Lee Yew Leong

Guest Artist Liaison: Berny Tan

Chief Copy Editor: Rachel Stanyon

Senior Copy Editors: Jennifer Busch, Ellen Sprague, and Maggie Wang

Copy Editors: Sophie Eliza Benbelaid, Ruairi Casey, Joseph McAlhany, Caitlin McKie, Matthew Redman, Matilde Ribeiro, Grace Roodenrys, Anna Rumsby, and Sam Steinmetz

Technical Manager: József Szabó

Director of Outreach: Georgina Fooks

English Social Media: Ruwa Alhayek, Livia Djelani, Huey-En Ooi, and Darius Sobhani

French Social Media: Filip Noubel

Spanish Social Media: Sergio Serrano

Graphic Designer: Michael Laungjessadakun

Senior Digital Editor: Matthew Redman

Digital Editors: Julia Maria and Savitri Asokan

Marketing Managers: Kate Lofthouse and Ciara Murphy

Director, Educational Arm: Sarah Nasar

Educational Arm Assistants: Mary Hillis, Marissa Lydon, Devi Sastry, and Sonakshi Srivastava

Book Club Manager: Carol Khoury

Asymptote would like to acknowledge the support of Rachel Farmer, Janet Phillips, and Haajar Abu Ismail.

For their generous donations this past quarter, our heartfelt thanks go too to Claire Hegarty, Daniel Hahn, Elena Barcia, Geoffrey Howes, Hannah Bowman, Il Park, Jeffrey Boyle, Katarzyna Bartoszynska, Lynn O'Neal, Marjolijn de Jager, Mark Cohen, Martin Ingebrigtsen, Michael Vinson, Monty Reid, Pavlos Stavropoulos, Roberta Newman, Theresa Henderson, Thomas Carroll, and Velina Manolova.

We'd also like to welcome Jared Davis and Guðrún Gísladóttir, new sustaining members since September 2025.

Back

Fiction

Amanda Michalopoulou, Desert

Translated from the Greek by Joanna Eleftheriou and Natalie Bakopoulos

One evening, walking on Lykavittos with my husband, I turn to him and say, I can’t see anything, there’s nothing here . . . As though the world has suddenly cracked open and you see the paper onto which it has been written.

Carla Mühlhaus, from Under Venice

Translated from the Portuguese by Victor Meadowcroft

I WANT TO BE THE NEW ARIEL, she said, balancing her tail on the edge of the swamp like someone spending an afternoon by the pool. A WOMAN WHO WOULD RATHER BE A MERMAID.

Pablo Palacio, The Cannibal

Translated from the Spanish by José Darío Martínez Milantchi

There he is, in the Penitentiary, sticking his big, oscillating head out from between the bars, the cannibal.

Kemal Varol, from Dark Mist

Translated from the Turkish by Başak Çandar and David Gramling

One way of speeding up the interminable stretch of time was to recount what one had lived through. In fact, at times it seemed to me that everyone had come to prison just to tell their story to someone, or to find an end to their story.

Andrés Montero, from Tony No One

Translated from the Spanish by Ruth Donnelly

The story appeared and I began to fade away, or become transparent, like a ghost. It was as if everyone: the audience, the characters, I myself, were suspended in time, or rather, as if no such thing existed.

Estabraq Ahmad, Layla’s Wolf

Translated from the Arabic by Fatima ElKalay

The woman turns to her husband. She murmurs, “What is it? You seem upset.” “Time is passing,” he says, “and she still hasn’t finished the story.”

Poetry

Nay Thit, The Language I Don’t Speak

Translated from the Burmese by Thiri Zune

I can see the skeletons of all of our past lives starting to melt under the milky silver tongue filled with the Sense of Humour of The Language I Don’t Speak.

Faruk Šehić, who came back

Translated from the Bosnian by Ena Selimović

whoever first comes back from war, let them send
a postcard from that city of glass
we’ll wait
you’ll wait
they, the dead, will certainly lie in wait

Noh Cheonmyeong, from Gazing at the Stars

Translated from the Korean by Moonsoon Kim and Eugene Thacker

It’s snowing outside the prison window.
The snow has found me all the way out here.
My heart stands on its tiptoes and peers outside.
It drifts away with the snow.

Yan Satunovsky, from Prosthesis Factory

Translated from the Russian by Ainsley Morse and Philip L. Redko

I want to forget
what the world is like.

Barbara Köhler, from No One’s Woman

Translated from the German by Monika Cassel and Christopher Nelson

It’s said I’m “I am”: a sign that sings and
springs /heaven and hell/ word asunder
broken a part my part concealed

Uroš Bojanović, from Alone in the Water

Translated from the Serbian by Ajla Dizdarević

Too little, too late!
yelled the local madman
as he returned from the premiere
of a stale horror
franchise’s sequel.

Katerina Iliopoulou, from The Book of Soil

Translated from the Greek by Jackson Watson

Branches and leaves, ditches filled with water and frogs
fall down from my eyes
With each step the soil drinks me, the thirsty earth.

Olivia Elias, at wit’s end

Translated from the French by Jérémy Victor Robert

children.   bellies swollen    licking flour traces
on truck floors
scratching sand in search of lentils

land drenched in their blood      the sap of Palestine

Gabrielle Althen, from Saxifrage Life

Translated from the French by Oscar Duffield

Around the speck of shadow we call us, pinhead, abysmal pivot, the wind, a very good wind, spreads out the tablecloth of life.

Manikkavasagar, from Sacred Utterances

Translated from the Tamil by Priya Sarukkai Chabria and Shobhana Kumar

as fly trapped      in the jackfruit’s sweetness    i was        stilled
by women’s soft sap

Nonfiction

Patrick Autréaux, Vassal of the Sun

Translated from the French by Tobias Ryan

We never know when we’re writing a book whether we are the young, melancholic Ishmael or the furious Ahab. We are both, no doubt.

Nakanishi Morina, Dried Seaweed at Midnight

Translated from the Japanese by Heidi Clark

In all the time I learned piano, right up until I quit, the only praise I ever received was for the shape of my hands.

Marat Uali, On the Way to Turan

Translated from the Russian by Yuriy Serebriansky

In Bishkek, Turkish President Recep Erdoğan declared: “Our common alphabet is a symbol of our shared destiny, our common future.”

Fabio Stassi, from Bebelplatz

Translated from the Italian by Ruth Chester

Antonio Tabucchi says that literature always has the same enemies, the same detractors, adversaries both internal and external, and the same assassins.

Drama

Herodas, Mimiambs

Translated from the Ancient Greek by William Heath

Since he went into Egypt, Mandris has been gone
a full ten months, but doesn’t scrawl a letter of
coming, casting you from mind, imbibing the new.

Visual

trans.sensory and trans-vocal: Naoko Fujimoto and Danielle Pieratti in Conversation

Meet There: An Interview with Koi and Hyungmee Shin

Translated from the Korean by Jiyu Seo

Outsiders

Pablo Palacio, The Double and Singular Woman

Translated from the Spanish by Thomas Taylor

No one can love me, because I have been forced to carry this burden, this shadow; I have been forced to carry my double.

Timo Teräsahjo, The Blue Container

Translated from the Finnish by Timo Teräsahjo

“Should disabled people be allowed to reproduce?” someone dumb had asked seriously on Finland24’s relationships forum.

On Attention

Johanna Drucker, Attention as Predation: Fields of Influence and Omnivorous Forces of Alignment

To understand how the agency of attention is predatory, realize that it consumes both its objects and its subjects.

Monika Vrečar, Does Poetry Exist, Or Not

Translated from the Slovenian by Monika Vrečar

True poetry moves beyond even the strongest subjective experience that great works of art can provoke. It does not simply redirect our attention toward the unutterable; it expands attention itself, almost mystically.

Andrea Gentile, from Apparitions

Translated from the Italian by Scott Belluz

An artistic experience cannot be a cast of the world.

Farah Ahamed, Dhyan Do: You’re Watching Lagaan

The monsoon is both a weather event and a season inside the human body.

Shinobu Urita, The Stone Garden

A man who used to fix clocks tells me he prefers the moment the tick becomes tock to either tick or tock. “It’s the turn,” he says. “The instant of becoming.”

Interview

An Interview with Tim Brookes

One of the difficult questions that people ask me that I don’t yet have a good answer for is: “What is writing?”

An Interview with Jen Calleja

The way I see translation is as a human collaboration. Someone’s telling me a story. I’m going to have to retell it. And I think it motivates me that it is this human-to-human thing.