In China, the literary establishment celebrated “China’s Thoreau” on the twenty-second anniversary of his death. In the USA, virtual events raised issues in the field and craft of literary translation, and in Malaysia, an upcoming poetry contest promises to shed light on the country’s multilingual literary landscape. Dive in!
Xiao Yue Shan, Blog Editor, reporting from China
“One day, mankind shall look back on the origins of his failure to survive on earth. He will find that, in 1712, an Englishman named Thomas Newcomen—a predecessor of James Watt—tried to create for this world the very first steam engine.”
The above words, taken from the Chinese writer 伟岸 Wei An’s essay, “大地上的事情” (The Earth’s Happenings), indicate towards how the late essayist, thinker, and diarist came to be known as “China’s Thoreau.” In characteristically attentive, ruminative, and exacting prose, Wei An’s moralist sensitivity to humanity’s presence and existence on earth sought to honor and preserve the organic nature of life, leading his contemporaries to believe, as writer Lin Xianzhi said: “The life of Wei An has given Chinese literature a direct and elucidating fact: that the writer must first and foremost be a person of excellent virtue.” On May 19, the twenty-second anniversary of his death, an event entitled “The Philosophy of Earth” was held in Wei An’s honor, with discussions revolving around the posthumous collection of the author’s diaries from 1986 to 1999, entitled 泥土就在我身旁 (The Dirt Is Beside Me), as well as the revised edition of his total collected works, edited by Feng Qiuzi and published last year.
As China continues to hurl itself into ever-more rapid ambitions of industrialization and technological domination, the pause and caution at the intersection between nature and civilization has become a passing romanticism, and the profound self-discipline and conscientious awareness that Wei An displayed in his work carries with it a new sense of sorrow and dread. In some of the final pages of his life, he had written that he was perhaps “not suited to enter the twenty-first century.” To live within his words in a time that he could not imagine is to navigate the nostalgic entrapments of primitivity with a scrupulous inquiry into the nature of human need and desire—to eliminate the delusions of the age of material, in order to once again regard value in its basic form.
At least the poets are still getting on with it. On May 16, the eleventh October Poetry Festival was held in Ziyang, Sichuan. Poets 翟永明 Zhai Yongming, 姚辉 Yao Hui, and 陈巨飞 Chen Jufei took home the festival’s coveted 2020 Poetry Prize, and renowned poet and the Chairman of the China Writer’s Association rousingly spoke on the occasion regarding the continual vitality of poetry in China’s expedited advancement: “As China evolves from a country of cultural wealth to a country of cultural power, its poetry is also entering a period of historic opportunity.” So it is, I suppose; in a world of campaigns, hierarchies, and nationalisms, not even poetry is without agenda.
Allison Braden, Assistant Blog Editor, reporting from the USA
One of the unalloyed joys of the pandemic era has been the wealth of accessible and abundant digital literary events, and this month featured a couple of gems. The controversy around Amanda Gorman’s Dutch translator brought renewed attention to diversity and representation in literary translation spheres, and a distinguished group of translators expanded on that conversation for a panel that aired on May 14 (available to watch through the end of today via Crowdcast). City of Asylum, a bookstore and organization that supports writers in danger, and Words Without Borders hosted the conversation as part of the Pittsburgh International Literary Festival.
Moderator (and Asymptote contributor) Jeremy Tiang was joined by Anton Hur, Bruna Dantas Lobato, Aaron Robertson, and Paige Morris to discuss representation in literary translation. Dantas Lobato, who translates Brazilian literature into English, her second language, argued against Schleiermacher’s assertion that translators ought only to translate into their first language—a requirement that naturally excludes many immigrants and translators of color from working into English. The burden of breaking down these barriers, Morris added, often falls to translators of color themselves. They promote inclusion and champion diverse translators because they’re familiar with the challenges, she said, but publishers and gatekeepers should be the ones doing this work. Robertson, an editor at Spiegel & Grau, described the challenge from inside the publishing industry, in part echoing his blockbuster essay, “Publishers Need More Black Translator Friends.” Morris later pushed back against the idea of representation as an end in itself, which so often leads to the kind of tokenism the panelists have experienced, and the group concluded by putting forth suggestions for diversifying the field of literary translation (Dantas Lobato praised one of Tiang’s initiatives: the ALTA BIPOC Caucus).
A few days later, translator and University of Denver professor Lindsay Turner convened Sophie Hughes and Emma Ramadan to discuss “translating excess.” Both translators used recent projects— including Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor and In Concrete by Anne Garréta, respectively—to eloquently illustrate the difficulty and delight of working through an abundance of linguistic challenges. Ramadan focused on wordplay and slang, while Hughes interrogated the use of profanity across cultures. In the introduction to her short talk, Hughes quotes writer George Steiner: “To understand is to decipher. To hear significance is to translate.” Both these events aimed at understanding—and deciphering—thorny issues in the field and the craft.
Kwan Ann Tan, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Malaysia
Despite the reinstatement of a national lockdown, Malaysian writing has been plodding on at a slow, but steady pace. Terence Toh’s novel, Toyols ‘R’ US, which was the winning entry in the Fixi Novo Malaysian Novel Contest has very recently been released. The synopsis promises a humorous romp, centred around an inspector-detective duo who team up to solve a mystery involving “the hidden supernatural side of Kuala Lumpur” and the mythical toyol (typically the spirit of a small child).
Pivoting to a different genre of fiction, we also have Stuart Danker’s Tinhead City, KL—a novel shortlisted for the 2020 Epigram Books Prize. The tale is set in a dystopian version of Kuala Lumpur, where a nineteen-year-old Zachary Ti joins a rebel faction to take down a cyborgian corporation.
There’s also a lot more to expect in the coming days from Malaysian poetry, as the University of Nottingham has announced a national Malaysian Poetry Writing Competition, hosted in conjunction with Maya Press. We haven’t had a competition like this in years, possibly even decades, so it will be exciting to see the poems and themes that emerge from the current poetic landscape. The contest’s grand prize is worth RM1000 and poets are encouraged to use the full spectrum of our local languages. Find more details here.
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This week on the Asymptote blog: