This week, our editors from around the globe report on the political undertones of a Bangkok book fair, new translations of Indian literature, new magazines out of Puerto Rico, and celebrations of Francophone literature in Romania. Read on to find out more!
Peera Songkünnatham, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Thailand
Bookworms are back wheeling their suitcases around in the country’s biggest book fair. It is the place to get another year’s worth of kong dong (“pile of pickles”)—i.e., unread books. After a cancellation last year and a move online the year before, the twelve-day National Book Fair, organized by the Publishers and Booksellers Association of Thailand is being held at the new rail transport hub, Bangsue Grand Station, until April 6. Many publishers, both major and independent, release new books in anticipation of this event, where they can get a bigger cut from sales and buyers have come to expect extra-special discounts. With over 200 publishers participating, author meet-and-greets, and predictable logistical complaints at the temporary new venue, we can perhaps sense a return to normalcy.
If one looks at this normalcy more closely, however, one can see an increasing trend of explicit politicization in the largely commercial enterprise. The calendar of main-stage events includes book launches by pro-democracy politicians from the Move Forward Party and the Progressive Movement (of the disbanded Future Forward Party). The names of four such politicians, all men, grace the official calendar—without the titles of their books, oddly enough. The Progressive Movement is also publishing its first translation: an illustrated children’s book, นี่แหละเผด็จการ (Así es la dictadura) by Equipo Plantel, first published in 1977 in post-Franco Spain. These examples provide quite a contrast to ostensibly political but effectively depoliticizing events led by, for lack of a better word, the literary establishment, like the panel discussion “Stepping into the Third Decade of the Phan Waen Fa Award: Political Literature for Democratic Development,” featuring three award committee members and a literary scholar.
Although everybody stays cordial, politics does sometimes erupt into the space. A few days into the fair, two railway police officers demanded that a left-wing publishing house take down its booth decorations: flowy strips of white fabric featuring Twitter hashtags from anti-dictatorship protests. The police cited the term “#dictatorialgovernment” as being “on the edge of offense” (min may). The publishing house stood its ground and negotiated a compromise: instead of taking down the decorations, they would be flipped inside out so as to make them “less readable.” And so reality seeps in: today, the term “dictatorial government” is regarded as not-quite-readable in this emblematic dreamspace for readers.
Suhasini Patni, Editor-at-Large, reporting from India
The 2022 International Booker Prize’s longlist includes as a contender, for the first time, a book translated from Hindi, Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand. Daisy Rockwell, the translator, described the novel as the hardest book she’s translated to date (an excerpt of her translator’s note is available here). Shree is known for her adventurous writing style that often includes a mix of many languages and multiple perspectives. This is reflected in the translation, which is packed with Hindi words and phrases. The Indian edition of the book, released in March by Penguin, features a painting by Rockwell as the cover image.
The year has seen many interesting releases in translation from Indian languages. Aleph Book Company’s series of short-story collections in translation has been expanding particularly rapidly. The publisher’s latest releases are The Greatest Gujarati Stories Ever Told, selected and translated by Rita Kothari, and The Greatest Telugu Stories Ever Told, selected and translated by Tamraparni Dasu and Dasu Krishnamoorty.
Additionally, Simona Sawhney, a professor at the University of Minnesota, has translated Yashpal’s semi-autobiographical novel Dada Comrade, originally released in 1941 (an excerpt of the book can be found here). “Translation is an infinite task,” she says at the end of her translator’s note. “I’m sure mine could have been better, but then you may not have read it at all.” The book—which follows Harish, a labor activist, and his lover and comrade Shail, who is known to defy social norms—solidified Yashpal as a pioneer political novelist. He was also one of the few male novelists to explore women’s role in the independence movement, their fight against a sexually repressive society, and their defiance towards revolutionaries who falsely claimed to stand up for gender equality.
Sawhney is best known for her book The Modernity of Sanskrit, in which she posits that the fate of Indian modernity is critically linked with reading the past and that modern adaptations of Sanskrit texts are important sites for postcolonial reflections. Using the works of Romila Thapar, Sheldon Pollock, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, she contests narrow interpretations of rich Sanskrit classics, particularly those that have been appropriated by Hindu nationalists.
Cristina Pérez Díaz, guest editor, reporting from Puerto Rico
The end of winter and the beginning of spring have been busy in the Puerto Rican literary scene. Two relatively recent projects are revitalizing literary periodicals in Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rico Review is an independent magazine focused on Puerto Rican literature. Launched in 2017, it is currently the only print literary magazine on the island. This winter, it released its seventh issue, devoted to short stories and chronicles, at a venue in the heart of Río Piedras—the once-lively neighborhood around the University of Puerto Rico that the past decade of intensified crisis has turned into a ghost town. The event felt like a tribute to the island’s most important institution of higher education—now destroyed by ruthless neoliberal politics—around which literature here has tended to proliferate. Like every independent cultural project right now, the publication of a magazine is a way of defiantly protecting and nourishing what is still standing.
It can also be a joyful invitation to demolish inhospitable places and make room for new things, as the name of the island’s latest literary magazine, Demoliendo Hosteles, suggests. Its first reading, held in the same venue as the TPPR launch, was not organized around the release of an issue but as fundraiser for Albania, an independent art gallery that had recently lost its space in Río Piedras. This is in tune with the magazine’s approach to literature, mediated by other art forms. A line-up of very young poets read to a room full of young listeners who constantly vocalized their enthusiasm for poetry. DH publishes young writers from all Latin America, creating bridges with the continent that have been consistently absent in Puerto Rico’s history of US colonialism.
On March 15, Raquel Salas Rivera was announced as a finalists for the 2022 Lambda Literary Awards for Transgender Poetry for his book x/ex/exis (The University of Arizona Press). Salas Rivera had already won the prize in 2018 with lo terciario/the tertiary (Noemi Press, 2nd Edition 2019), which was also longlisted for the National Book Award. His newest book, antes que isla es volcán/before island is volcano (Beacon Press), will be released on April 5 at a virtual event hosted by McNally Jackson. The only other Puerto Rican writer with a Lammy is Luis Negrón, whose 2013 debut short story collection, Mundo Cruel (Seven Stories Press), won the 2014 prize for Gay General Fiction.
A few weeks ago, poet, translator, and book artist Nicole Delgado was named the next Riccio Artist-in-Residence by the Virginia Center for the Book. Delgado, whose book A Mano/By Hand recently came out with Ugly Duckling Press, was also featured on March 12 on Poetry Daily. Together with poet Amanda Hernández, she is the co-founder of La Impresora, an independent artisanal press that specializes in risographs.
MARGENTO, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Romania, Spain, and Belgium
Last week, the city of Iaşi in northern Romania hosted Feminine Francophone Writing, an event organized by the French Cultural Institute and the Romanian Museum of Literature that featured thirteen members of the Parliament of Francophone Women Writers. The three Romanian writers involved were past Asymptote contributor Simona Popescu, Asymptote Book Club author Magda Cârneci, and Florina Ilis; these authors were involved in round tables and were featured in readings and performances. Outstanding members of the above-mentioned Parliament and writers with diverse backgrounds—such as African-French writer and critic Marie-Rose Abomo-Maurin, journalist and singer Marijosé Alie, Tunisian-Jewish Israeli fiction writer Chochana Boukhobza, best-selling novelist Catherine Cusset, award-winning Belgian writer and actress Geneviève Damas, and Canadian New Yorker Madeleine Monette—were among the other featured speakers. The events, organized as part of the Month of Francophonie, also included a multicultural edition of the Spring of Poets festival in Iaşi with the theme of ephemerality. Francophonie-related eventss have been organized across the region, from Timişoara to Bucharest to Cluj to the Republic of Moldova.
Romanian-Francophone connections have been active beyond Romania as well this month: the Romanian-French playwright Matéi Visniec, a Francophone writer and past Asymptote contributor, visited Madrid this month for the staging of one of his plays. Migraaaantes was presented at the French Cultural Institute in the Spanish capital, and the performance was followed by a Q&A with the author. Visniec also did a Q&A with students and scholars at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where Asymptote past contributor Felix Nicolau has been indefatigably organizing and participating in events and projects this academic year in his capacity as incoming Romanian Studies Lecturer.
Literary Francophonie is going strong in Belgium as well, where playwright-actress Stéphanie Mangez’s play Tom won the Prix littéraire francophone, awarded annually by high-school students and judged this year by six classes in Bassin Sud-Aisne (France) and one class in Tunisia. Two other Belgian writers also made a splash in their turn. Award-winning author Jean d’Amérique won the Montluc Résistance et Liberté for his latest novel, and rising star Antoine Wauters was shortlisted for the Prix Lorientales.
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