Monthly Archives: June 2015

How Literary Translation Upgraded my MFA

Our new blog editor Katrine explains how literary translation transformed her creative writing MFA & writing practice overall.

First, I did it for the money. I used to work as a freelance journalist, and to support myself on the side I translated tv-shows, computer games, websites, you name it.  It paid well. So when I came to Columbia University to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing, I thought: hey, I’ll just do a double-concentration in fiction and literary translation so I can support myself as a translator of books while trying to make it as a writer. Ha! Ha.

I remember the writing program hosted a mingle with drinks on the first evening of our intro week, and halfway through the event I was already drunk on a) wine, b) nerves, and c) an incredibly long conversation with poet Timothy Donnelly about the great Danish poet Inger Christensen and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: “Sketch” by Zerina Zahirović

Translated by our editor-at-large Mirza Purić

She died quietly, she died the death of those who love stubbornly, angrily, jealously, secretly, and

elephantishly. At a neighbour’s urge, she treated rheumatoid arthritis with crude oil. The therapy resulted in second-degree burns. On the inside of my eyelids I sketch her knees – two magical orbs of glass – and I rub them with devil’s claw unguent. Prayer and displeasure spill softly in the room in which we are alone and furtive, for

where, why, and for whom does the devil

make unguent from his claw? She died quietly, to render loud some mornings that had tumbled down and stuck into me like hedgehogs. I sketch those mornings as a

 

crooked bicycle tyre. I push the bicycle uphill into the whitish dawn, I hurry to spill before her the smell of the lead from the newspaper, the smell of the pastry which is a crumbled sketch of her face on the inside of my eyelids. The way I close the distance between us is like the way her eyebrows come together in a frown, she pushes hard sugar cubes into my mouth, and I buzz in the garden for hours and I sip the sap of a liquorice. I sketch her as READ MORE…

Hands Across the Water: A Dispatch

Jen Calleja dispatches from "Don't Mind the Gap: An Evening of British/German Literature at King's Place" in London

‘Don’t Mind the Gap: An Evening of German and British Literature’ at King’s Place, though clocking in at two hours, had an energetic, celebratory and comfortable atmosphere from start to finish. Though the venue was larger than the ICA’s cinema where I’d attended ‘Found in Translation’ the previous evening, it also felt like the more intimate of the two events.

Reading one after the other for ten-to-fifteen minutes apiece were some of the finest English- and German-speaking poets and writers working today: Durs Grünbein, Terézia Mora, Simon Armitage, A L Kennedy, Imtiaz Dharker, Marcel Beyer, Don Paterson and Alfred Brendel. All the authors’ texts were projected onto an updating screen, in English for the British writers to help German-speakers (which made a couple of the writers a little nervous, and even confused when they saw English behind them but half-expected to see themselves in German), and in English translation for the German writers. READ MORE…

Weekly News Roundup, 5th June 2015: Don’t Write Your Memoir.

This week's literary highlights from across the world

Happiest of Fridays, Asymptote pals! This is the first week Katrine, new blog co-editor, is on board—so let’s give her a big web-round-of-applause (tapping on the keyboard in the comments section helps). Hi Katrine! You might recognize Katrine because she was a judge for the Best Translated Book Award so, yeah—she’s a celeb.

Speaking of celebs, our former Central Asia Editor-at-Large, Alex Cigale, recently guest-edited a section on Russian poetry over at the Atlanta Review—it’s definitely worth checking out (and look for a blog interview on the guest-editing process soon). If you are a fan of the Norwegian Nobel Prizewinning bard, Tomas Transtömer, here’s a treat—his final interview given before his death, in translation. And, speaking of poetry—the New Yorker has an interesting piece on Jihadi poetry and what it means to share some words.

Multitasking artists: American playwright Tennessee Williams took up painting, once (just like American ex-President Dubya, whose outsider-art paintings I frankly prefer). And Dany Lafferière, a Haitian novelist who came of age in Canada, is the first non-French citizen to be admitted in the prestigious Académie Française.

What are your favorite authors’ favorite words? Here’s a little list. And what’s your favorite curse word—it might not have existed too long ago (except, of course, for “fart,” which has stood the test of time).

How does it feel to write and never be read? Most of us know, all too bitterly. But perennial Nobel-speculation and speculative-fiction writer, Canadian novelist/poet Margaret Atwood, has written for a library that won’t be available for another one hundred years. Will we all be screened-up e-readers by then? The Chicago Tribune thinks not. Nine hundred years later, we’re still collectively obsessed with the old Icelandic god, Loki, though. What gives?

Finally, please, and for the love of God—unless you are Karl Ove (in which case it is already too late): delete your memoir. If it’s written from a female perspective, it’s less likely to win any big prizes, anyway (ugh), unless, of course, it is the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction (congrats Ali Smith for How to Be Both, this year’s prizewinner). Prizes aren’t always great, though: even judge Marina Warner (from the Man Booker!) is bemoaning the dearth of world literature available in English—good thing journals like Asymptote are working to buck that trend.

Poem as Firework, Poem as Bone China: A Dispatch

A dispatch from the "Found in Translation" event at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London

We run through groups of snail-paced tourists from Trafalgar Square to arrive just in time for the start of “Found in Translation” at the ICA, almost walking directly into Michael Hofmann on entering the filling cinema. We take our seats just as he walks down to join fellow poet and literary translator Jamie McKendrick and German poet Jan Wagner on stage. While everyone settles down to an ominous soundtrack straight out of Star Wars, I take in the two rows of bulbs, like the lights that surround the mirror in a theatre dressing room, running the length of the ceiling. Some of them are out, which fits an event that glows but never quite reaches its full brightness.

In the introduction, Jan Wagner is sprightly and upright with a schoolboy haircut, Jamie McKendrick cradles his leather satchel before sliding it onto the floor, Michael Hofmann plays with his hands, lets them hang down either side of his chair, then finally folds them in his lap. Microphones are reluctantly taken up. McKendrick hugs his to the side of his head, Hofmann whispers to his like a little friend. READ MORE…

In Review: “The Argonauts” by Maggie Nelson

Rachel Bonner reviews an "homage to... the great soup of being in which we actually live.”

The Latin prefix ‘trans’ embodies movement: to go beyond, across, through. In her latest book Argonauts, critic and poet Maggie Nelson engages with theorists Luce Irigary, Jacques Lacan and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, moving through, across, and somewhere beyond their philosophies as she applies them to her lived experience.

Argonauts’ refers to a hypothetical spaceship dubbed the Argo that continuously reconstructs form throughout its ongoing voyage. Nelson’s prose incarnates this essential sense of movement, retaining a verse-like relation to its subject matter, the author’s domestic experiences and evolving romantic relationship with gender fluid artist Harry Dodge. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: “The Awaiter” by Duanwad Pimwana

We coexisted in close proximity on this planet. Even so, we led a solitary existence... What right did a person have to demand something of others?

I never had any luck, perhaps because I never thought of it, and it probably didn’t think of me. Yet something now lay at my feet. That it had to show up there was no mere contingency. I could have easily stepped over it or veered to the side. Somebody whisking about in the vicinity would have picked it up; he probably would have grinned and chalked it up to his lucky day. But I hadn’t moved aside, and as long as I stood in place and glanced calmly at it down by my feet, others could only steal a wistful glimpse. Some might have regretted walking a tad too fast; if they had been slower, they could have become its possessor. Some might have reasoned, siding with themselves, that they spotted it even before I did, but they were a step too slow. Regardless, I picked up the money, without concluding as of yet whether it was my luck or not.

That evening at the tail end of the monsoon season, I happened to walk by a crowded bus stop even though it was not on my way home and I had no purpose for taking that route. The money lay fallen behind a bus. When I bent down to pick it up, the hot air from the exhaust pipe spurted onto my face as I unfurled myself back to standing. A pair of eyes darted at me. Its owner walked toward me with a face painted with an uncertain smile. I knew his intentions immediately. While I myself was unsure of my status in relation to the money at that instant, one thing of which I was absolutely certain was: the man approaching was not the owner of the money—but he wanted to be.

READ MORE…

What’s New with the Asymptote Team?

We've been very busy!

Aamer Hussein (contributing editor) has released a new collection of short stories, entitled 37 Bridges and Other Stories.

Aditi Machado (poetry editor) has a poem anthologized in February as well as four poems out in Web Conjunctions.

Ágnes Orzóy (Hungary editor-at-large) has written an article for Quarterly Conversation on Prae, the monumental 1934 novel by Miklós Szentkuthy, a writer previously introduced in our pages. She has also recently begun to blog for ELit Literaturhaus Europa, an observatory for European contemporary literature focusing chiefly on research, discussion and publishing results concerning literary trends across Europe, as well as inter-cultural communication of literature within Europe. Her first two posts can be read here and here.

Isle-to-Isle, chief executive assistant Berny Tan and Sher Chew’s collaborative data visualization project based on Jules Verne’s classic novel, The Mysterious Island, has come full circle. Berny also recently published a nonfiction, “Ah Ma’s Chilli,” in Junoesq Literary Journal.

Drama editor Caridad Svich‘s new book, Innovation in Five Acts: Strategies for Theatre and Performance, gathering forty-three essays from admired theater professionals discussing techniques for creating theater, is now available for pre-order at Amazon.

On April 26, Chenxin Jiang (senior editor for Chinese content) and Lee Yew Leong (editor-in-chief) took part in Singapore: Inside Out’s Beijing showcase at the contemporary art enclave, 798.

Chris Tanasescu (a.k.a. MARGENTO, Romania editor-at-large) has published an article (co-authored with Research Assistant Andres Lou and Computer Science Professor Diana Inkpen) titled “Multilabel Subject-based Classification of Poetry” in The Proceedings of the Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society Conference; the paper is part of his ongoing project titled The Graph Poem. Alaska-based writer and academic Helena Spector also recently reviewed his book Nomadosophy in Semne Bune (previously reviewed in Asymptote here).

Diana George (proofreader) published a new story, “Wara Wara,” in the Spring 2015 issue of Conjunctions as well as a review of Antoine Volodine’s Writers in 3:AM magazine.

Contributing editor Ellen Elias-Bursac‘s translation of David Albahari’s novel, Gotz and Meyer, has been republished by Dalkey Archive.

Joshua Craze (nonfiction editor) published an essay on the conflict in South Sudan with Creative Time Reports. He also has an essay in the catalogue for Jenny Holzer’s exhibition, War Paintings, currently on display at the Museo Correr in Venice; a version of this essay was also featured in Media-N. His essay on redaction appeared recently in the collected volume Dissonant Archives: Contemporary Visual Cultures and Contested Narratives in the Middle East.

Julia Sherwood (Slovakia editor-at-large) and Peter Sherwood (past contributor) have published an extract of Czech writer Zuzana Brabcová’s The Year of Pearls, in Words Without Borders’s queer issue, out today. Their extract of Ján Rozner’s autobiographical novel Seven Days to the Funeral also appeared in BODY.Literature.

The first full-length poetry collection, Vulgar Mechanics, of assistant editor Kara Billey Thordarson (pen name K.T. Billey) is a semi-finalist for the 2015 Pamet River prize from YesYes Books. The winner will be announced on August 1.

Lee Yew Leong (editor-in-chief) has published his book-length English translation of Fu-chen Lo’s memoir, From Taiwan to the World and Back, excerpted in the January 2014 issue. He also served as guest editor for the recently launched Issue 53 of Columbia: A Journal of Art and Literature.

Interviews editor Matt Jakubowski has published an experimental work entitled “Corner of the World” in 3:AM magazine.

Marketing manager Rosie Clarke reviewed Richard Weiner’s The Game for Real (translated by Benjamin Paloff) in the May 29 issue of The Times Literary Supplement.

Poetry Foundation ran an essay by Win Bassett (legal advisor) about his summer stint at a hospital and the necessity of poetry.