Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

All you the news updates you need—right here at Asymptote

Lots of things have been happening in the world of literature, but don’t worry—as always we’ve got you covered with news from far and wide. Maíra Medes Galvão serves up a rich helping of literary festivals and events around Brazil (and New York), including a celebration of Bloomsday. Sneha Khaund gives us the who’s who and the what’s what of India’s literary scene right now, including recently published authors and the most exciting literary readings and events. Stefan Kielbasiewicz provides some tragic, but at the same time uplifting news, and gets into the thick of prizes and festivals that have already happened and all that are yet to come. Strap yourselves in and enjoy the ride.

Maíra Mendes Galvão, Editor-at-Large, reports from Brazil:

As a plea to encourage people to acquire the habit of reading—famously said to be lacking in Brazil—four literature and entertainment blogs from Belém, capital of the State of Pará, have put on a literary festival dubbed a ‘Cultural Marathon‘, which started on June 17 and goes on until the 25th. There will be talks around themes such as sci-fi, the detective & crime genres, new Brazilian literature and others. The festival is hosted by the bookstore chain Leitura and supported by publishing houses Intrínseca, Pandorga and DarkSide.

Bloomsday did not go by unnoticed in Brazilian territory. The city of São Paulo traditionally holds its June 16 celebrations inspired by the initiative of brother poets and translators Haroldo and Augusto de Campos, who first brought the festive date over to São Paulo thirty years ago. Casa das Rosas, a cultural venue and museum dedicated to Haroldo de Campos, and Casa Guilherme de Almeida, dedicated to the eponymous translator and poet, have come together again this year with a program that included a festive wake (Finnegan’s wake, naturally) with live Irish music as well as conferences, talks and readings.

In Brasília, the capital of Brazil, the celebration was held by Sebinho, the city’s largest used and new books store and literary venue. The program included live Irish music and dramatic readings of the ‘Ithaca’ and ‘Proteus’ chapters.

The city of Rio de Janeiro is hosting its first Indigenous Literature Seminar on June 27, together with the 14th Meeting of Indigenous Writers and Artists, at Centro de Convenções SulAmérica, organized by Daniel Munduruku and hosted by Instituto Uk’a.

Brazilian literature (and gastronomy) took over the five boroughs of New York City with the festival Allover5 from June 13-18. Organized by poet Ana Rüsche and chef Maurício Schuartz, the program included talks, readings and performances celebrating Brazilian literature and culture.

Sneha Khaund, blog editor at Asymptote, reporting from India:

One of the biggest pieces of literary news this summer across the world has been the release of Indian novelist Arundhati Roy’s Ministry of Utmost Happiness. It is her second novel and comes twenty years after the release of her Booker Prize winning debut novel. Roy’s novel reflects her ardently held political beliefs, but it has received mixed reviews in the country despite dominating the media’s attention. Another noteworthy book released recently is Half-Open Windows, translated from the original acclaimed Marathi edition to English by award-winning novelist, Jerry Pinto. The book, set in Mumbai (or Bombay, as it was called before the official change), portrays urban upper middle-class life and leaves room for speculation whether the ‘Bombay novel’, a category famously created through the writings of the likes of Salman Rushdie and Suketu Mehta and tinged by criticism of English-language elitism, is going through a democratic transformation through translation. Gayatri Swaminathan, too, recently released the latest instalment in the ‘Lalli series’ of detective novels that uniquely feature a middle aged protagonist.

There have been plenty of literary events to keep bibliophiles busy too. Last week, the iconic CMYK bookstore in Delhi, which is a part of Roli Books, hosted a documentary screening featuring an Indian film-maker’s quest to record the Hindustani classical music tradition in India. The organizers stated that this was the first in a series of events to make the bookstore an interactive space for book-lovers. Seagull Books also hosted an evening of poetry in the capital with poet and television personality Pritish Nandy, reading from a collection of Bengali poet Bhaskar Chakrabarti’s poetry. Arunava Sinha, who translated the poems into English, was present too and shared a few words about the poet and his work. Hearken Café recently was the venue for a poetry reading featuring many fresh voices, including many who read in Urdu, and also for an earlier event with poets Akhil Katyal and Aditi Rao reading from their new work. Moving away from the capital, the Brahmaputra Literary Festival was held in Guwahati. It was jointly organized by the National Book Trust and the Assam government and has been aimed as a festival to highlight the literatures and cultures of the northeastern part of the country, apart from some international literature. Café Dissensus too dedicated its latest issue to women’s writing from Northeast India, including the work of Dibyajyoti Sarma whose translations have previously been published in Asymptote.

Stefan Kielbasiewicz, blog editor at Asymptote, reports from the UK:

Helen Dunmore, a British poet and novelist who wrote twelve poetry collections and fifteen novels, among other works, passed away on June 5 at the age of sixty-four. Her first poetry collection, The Apple Fall was published by Bloodaxe in 1983, and her last collection, Inside The Wave, was released in April. Her final poem, Hold out your arms, was released by Bloodaxe the day after she died, and her latest novel, Birdcage Walk, was released in March. Soon after being diagnosed with cancer, Dunmore wrote in The Guardian, “I have been thinking about this question of legacy over the past few months, for one reason because my new novel deals with memory, historical record, what remains, what is saved and what is lost.” One reviewer in the Observer wrote that Birdcage Walk “is the finest novel Helen Dunmore has written.”

The PEN Translates award winners have been announced, featuring “books translated from 14 languages and 16 countries, including a Uyghur memoir, Palestinian short stories, Somali poetry…and a Chinese graphic novel,” among others. The awards cover up to 75% of the costs of the English translation of the winners’ publishers, and the next round of submissions for the prize opens in November 2017. Some of the translators, such as Anton Hur and Mara Faye Letham, have had their work featured in Asymptote. See the previous prize-winners here.

Naomi Alderman has won the £30,000 Bailey’s prize for women’s fiction for her fourth novel, The Power, published by Penguin, which imagines a world where women physically dominate men through the ability to electrocute them at will. In her acceptance speech, she said “I suppose one of the things the book is about is that the support and the power of other women has been more vital to me than electricity.” With debates in feminism remaining lively, Alderman says that she is “thrilled” by “how many people want to talk about [the book]…I don’t have the answers to the problems of gender but hopefully I have some interesting questions.”

Last weekend the Borders Book Festival in Melrose, Scotland was in full swing, with some of the most well-known participants consisting of Joanna Trollope, Arabella Weir and Melvyn Bragg. In addition, the UK’s biggest poetry festival, the Ledbury Poetry Festival, will be taking place over the span of ten days from June 30 to July 9. The Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize is dedicated to poets’ second collections, in response to the number of prizes being awarded for debuts. This year’s shortlist includes Emma Hammond’s The Story of No and Sam Riviere’s Kim Kardashian’s Marriage, to name only a few, and the winner will be announced at a reading given by the winning poet and this year’s two main poet judges, Vahni Capildeo and Tara Bergin.

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