Linguaphiles of the world unite! Before we start out with different bits and bobs of global and literary news, don’t forget that the Summer issue of Asymptote is out now and waiting for your perusal. For those among you who are teachers, we’ve just released the Educator’s Guide accompanying this issue. From linguistics to critical essay writing, educational material on a dizzying array of topics is collated in the form of interactive lesson plans, contextualizing resources, interactive learning tools, and follow-up assignments for high school and university students. Grab your free download now!
Now let’s get back to news in the literary world this week, starting off with a Russian award aimed at popularizing the country’s literature through translation. Translators around the world from Spain and Hungary to China and Mexico were nominated. The longlist was released this week and can be read here.
Moving west from one large land mass to another, in the preview of Quill & Quire‘s Fall 2016 issue, Steven W. Beattie muses on the up and coming French Canadian literature in translation. He also lists many of those books to be published as support.
Now heading both south and east at the same time, the biggest piece of literary news this week is Marjorie Liu, the Chinese biracial woman writer for the Marvel comic X-Men. Her new comic, Monstress was recently released and it puts women of color front and center. If you want to know more about Marjorie Liu and her story, NPR did a wonderful profile of her this week.
Stay east for a short moment, or a short story if you will. This past week, Shanghai was the host of a conference about the English-Language short story. Themes such as globalization and stories from the outsider were especially popular at the conference.
Now let’s return west. The Guardian this week published a review of a new anthology, titled Centres of Cataclysm, which celebrates 50 years of the magazine Modern Poetry in Translation. The anthology brings together eastern and western styles and writers of poetry.
I hope you’re not getting dizzy, because we’re headed back east. The New Inquiry did a round table with Egyptian novelist, Basma Abdel Aziz. Her novel, The Queue is a dystopian realist tale inspired by the recent revolution in Egypt.
Just one more jump across that pond we call the Atlantic, I promise! Rumaan Alam wrote an essay in The Wall Street Journal this week about a tequila that sent him flying through Proustian moments and deep into the past to the beginning of his relationship with his husband. What a read!
Thanks for voyaging through time and cyberspace with me, Asymptote readers. Tune in next week for the latest and greatest in literary news. And don’t forget to read the wonderful and experimental Summer 2016 issue, “The Dive.”
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