This week, our writers bring you the latest news from Lebanon, Taiwan, and France. In Lebanon, translator Dr. Mona Kareem has won the National Endowment for the Arts Award and the Barjeel Poetry Prize winners have been announced; in Taiwan, the February issue of INK literary magazine presents work by sixteen Taiwanese authors on “A Memo for Literature of the Next Decade”; and in France, Vanessa Springora’s bestselling memoir about sexual abuse will be released in English translation. Read on to find out more!
MK Harb, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Lebanon
In Lebanon, the cultural world and the literary sphere has been rocked by the news of the assassination of Lokman Slim. Slim was a prolific writer and intellectual, and was an influential member of the cultural and political community, opening his research and documentation practice UMAM in southern Beirut. A celebration of his life and work was held on February 11.
In translation news, Dr. Mona Kareem, translator of Octavia Butler’s Kindred into Arabic, won the National Endowment for the Arts Award. Her award supports the translation from the Arabic of the poetry collection Falcon with Sun Overheard by Ra’ad Abdulqadir, a pioneer of Iraqi poetry. Here is Dr. Kareem’s haunting translation of his poem “A Song for the Lightning Bird.” Interested in learning more about the Arabic prose poem? Then listen to author Huda J. Fakhreddine’s online talk about it at Dartmouth College!
In more thrilling translation news, Sawad Hussain’s translation from the Arabic of A Bed for the King’s Daughter is being published by University of Texas Press. Written by Syrian author Shahla Ujayli, whose past work was long-listed for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, this collection of short stories is experimental, witty, and loaded with uncanny images dealing with modernity, alienation, and patriarchy.
We know 2021 still has daunting lockdown situations across the world and many lonesome nights of baking. We’re here to help with some reading suggestions! The Barjeel Poetry Prize winners were announced in January and their work is now published with the acclaimed literary journal Rusted Radishes in Beirut. Our favorite is Chanson Mystique by Emily Khlifeh!
Vivian Szu-Chin Chih, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Taiwan
Chinese Lunar New Year of the ox is knocking at the front door in Taiwan. While Asymptote has been celebrating its tenth anniversary milestone with the January issue, the newly released February issue of INK literary magazine, entitled “A Memo for Literature of the Next Decade,” invited sixteen Taiwanese writers born after the 1980s to contribute, focusing on the literary scene of Taiwan during the past ten years, or looking ahead to the next ten years. Jiang Ya-ni’s (蔣亞妮) “2010-2020 Ten-Year Observations of Taiwanese Literature” and Ma Yi-Hang’s (馬翊航) “Once Once Again: Thinking of the Indigenous Literature in Ten Years” are among the featured pieces. Chen Xue (陳雪), the well-known Taiwanese writer, whose translated novella on the issue of transgender, “Venus,” was co-published by Paper Republic and Asymptote as part of the Translation Tuesday series back in 2015. Her latest detective novel, Dear Accomplice (親愛的共犯), was just published by Mirror Fiction, which explores the definition of “home” and the nature of committing a crime.
The Polish film director, Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Three Colours” series, which earned him Best Director of the 1993 Venice Film Festival and of the 1994 Berlin International Film Festival, have been digitally restored and will be screened by the SPOT Huashan cinema in Taipei starting from early February. While more awareness and attention have shifted towards Taiwanese cinema since the last half of 2020, due to Taiwan’s relatively better-controlled pandemic situation and thus the still-running cinemas around Taiwan, a monograph introducing the film poster painter Chen Zifu (陳子福, 1926-) has been published by Yuan-Liou Publishing Company. The book unprecedentedly presents the rarely seen 250 original, hand-drawn film posters of Chen at the peak of Taiwanese-language films from the 1960s to the 70s. The three co-authors interviewed the 95-year-old painter, recording the first-hand account and memories of this legendary film poster painter, who won the Lifetime Achievement Award of the 43th Golden Horse Film Festival in 2006.
Sarah Moore, Blog Editor, reporting from France
The French publishing world and intelligentsia continue to be shaken by sexual abuse scandals. French lawyer Camille Kouchner published La Familia grande in January, a memoir in which she writes that her stepfather, the high-profile academic Olivier Duhamel, sexually abused her twin brother when they were adolescents. Duhamel has since resigned from all his posts, including Presidency of FNSP (Sciences Po). The book has sparked intense debate about toughening sexual assault laws against minors and has motivated others to speak out about family abuse. An investigation into the allegations is ongoing.
Meanwhile, prominent French author Gabriel Matzneff is due to stand on trial in September after the release of Vanessa Springora’s Consent (Le Consentement, Éditions Grasset), a memoir released in January last year in which she reveals how Matzneff sexually abused her when she was fourteen. Having been immediately dropped by his publishers, Matzneff has once again shocked France by publishing his latest book, the appallingly titled Vanessavirus, via a crowdfunding campaign. The new book is a response to Springora’s accusation and, according to L’Obs magazine, will be available by a secretive subscription service, with ten copies being sold at a price of 650 euros each and 190 copies at 100 euros each. Springora’s book caused a sensation upon its release and was an immediate bestseller. You can watch an interview (in French) with Springora discussing Le Consentement on the well-known literary TV show La Grande Librairie here. The book’s English translation, Consent, will be available on February 16, published by HarperCollins and translated by Natasha Lehrer.
In other news of French translations into English, Les Fugitives press are publishing Noémie Lefebvre’s Poetics of Work, translated by Sophie Lewis, on April 7. Set against a backdrop of police brutality and rising nationalism, Lefebvre’s latest work to be made available in English explores the idea of “work” through a narration that combines politics, philosophy and poetry. Her first novel to be translated to English, Blue Self-Portrait was published in 2017.
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