Happy Friday, Asymptote pals! Have you had a chance to check out Asymptote‘s year-end fundraiser yet? Our fifth(!) anniversary is just around the corner, and we’ve got fifteen events planned in cities all around the world to celebrate—but we need your help. Take a look at this year’s end-of-year Indiegogo, with all its tantalizing prizes (postcards! bookmarks! anniversary tickets—of the Asymptote sort), and remember the greatest gift is knowing you’re part of an organization doing seriously good work for world literature.
Speaking of year-end traditions—the barrage of best-of lists continues, and I’m partial to NPR‘s innovative book concierge app—which allows its user to pick a Best-Of by dint of strict criteria. This year features a whole category devoted to translation-ish titles, several of which have been featured on the blog (like Yoss’ A Planet for Rent, Frederick Sjöberg’s The Fly Trap, all things Ferrante, Clarice Lispector—and her translator!—and many more).
And if you’re looking for up-and-comers (and perhaps members of next year’s list), the earliest biography of an Ethiopian woman,The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros by religious leader Walatta Petros has been translated into English for the first time—ever (Petros died in 1642—do you think the wait was long enough?). And we might have more to look forward to in the future: the Armenian Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has announced a translatorial series, between Armenian, Turkish, and other foreign languages—hurray!
Another good friend of the blog, Polish/Spanish translator Jennifer Croft’s digi-novel Homesick (itself an experiment through languages and translations) is featured on the Chicago Tribune. We reviewed Mexican writer Yuri Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World on the blog—here’s an interview with the man himself. Couple that with the Los Angeles Review of Books’ piece on the “Renaissance” in contemporary Mexican literature (what “Renaissance?” It’s been here all along—it just hasn’t been translated. Harumph).
We all know how important encounters are for literature, which isn’t as solipsistic as we’d like to believe (just take a look at Asymptote‘s anniversary events!). Here’s a look at Latin America‘s most massive Guadalajara International Book Fair, one of publishers’ number-one industry gatherings and a good bellweather for literary seasons to-come.