This week, our Editors-at-Large report on the literary scene, including literary festivals and debates about educational reforms. From a readathon in Kenya to the Struga Poetry Evenings in North Macedonia, read on to find out more!
Sofija Popovska, Editor-at-Large, reporting from North Macedonia
The greatest literary event in North Macedonia, the Struga Poetry Evenings (SPE), began yesterday with the customary reading of T’ga za jug (Longing for the South), an iconic poem by the first modern Macedonian poet, Konstantin Miladinov. The first event of this year’s festival was the planting of a tree in Poetry Park to honor this year’s laureate and recipient of the Golden Wreath, Vlada Urošević. Previous recipients of this award include W. H. Auden, Allen Ginsberg, Pablo Neruda, and Ted Hughes, as SPE broadened its scope from national to international literature in 1966.
An upcoming noteworthy part of the festival will be a celebration at the Church of St. Sophia to mark 100 years since the death of Aco Šopov. Šopov is a central presence in Macedonian literature—a poet, translator, editor, and one of the founding members of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Some of his work will be made available to Anglophone audiences very soon, via a bilingual English-Macedonian edition of Šopov’s poems, translated by Christina E. Kramer and Rawley Grau, to be published later this year by Deep Vellum. A selection of his poems in Kramer and Grau’s translation was featured in Asymptote’s Winter 2023 issue. In keeping with its international spirit, however, SPE will also feature events to celebrate non-Macedonian authors. Among the highlighted writers will be Gavin Bradley, an Irish author from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and the Hungarian poet Sándor Petőfi.
Multiculturalism, often overlooked in the Macedonian struggle for a distinctive identity, came to the foreground during another recent event: Victor Friedman, an important linguist in the field of Slavic studies, received the World Prize for Humanism from the Ohrid Academy of Humanism on August ninth. Friedman gave a speech where he highlighted the multilingualism underpinning Macedonian society, which includes Albanian, Romani, Turkish, and Romanian, among other Balkan languages. “Ohrid was, is, and will remain,” per Friedman, “the seat of multilingualism, which only confirms its title as the center of world humanism.” Ohrid is certainly special, being a UNESCO Cultural World Heritage Site, but the diversity Friedman notes applies to the rest of North Macedonia as well.
Andriana Hamas, Editor-at-Large, Reporting from Bulgaria
Educational reforms have often been a focal point of discussion in Bulgaria. However, the surprisingly poor scores at this year’s nationwide advanced-level examinations sparked even more heated debates. Three leading literary figures, in particular, outlined their main concerns and recommendations in opinion articles published by the daily news platform Dnevnik.
Poet Amelia Litcheva noted that “most of the texts presently dominating the country’s school curriculum revolve around the Liberation from the Ottomans [a nineteenth-century historical process that led to the reestablishment of the Bulgarian state]. We are introducing pupils mainly to then-popular authors such as Botev and Vazov or else to stories set against a rural backdrop. […] Among the themes that textbooks should include instead and that will help children perceive Bulgaria in a new light are the urban, Europe, our relationship with the Other, the September 9 coup d’état, and life under socialism.”
For his part, writer Aleksandar Kyosev described Litcheva’s position as “relatively conservative, albeit reasonable if it wasn’t too late for it” and went on to propose a more “radical” plan of action, namely supporting the practice of reading itself, arguing that “it is about time someone accurately formulated the desired goal, even if achieving it is not currently feasible.”
Finally, at least for now, translator Zornitsa Hristova listed the five steps that, according to her, could be taken immediately to alleviate the situation: reimagining the examinations format, decreasing the number of said examinations, allocating sufficient funds for each teacher’s professional development, ensuring that the educators are publicly appreciated, and investing in school libraries.
Wambua Muindi, Editor-at-Large, reporting on Kenya and Nairobi
Four days, three city libraries, one festival and a host of literary activities. This is what the experience at NBO Litfest 2023, run by the BookBunk, a flagship project restoring Nairobi’s libraries in the CBD, Kaloleni and Makadara, was like. The hosting libraries were Mcmillan Memorial Library (the oldest library in Nairobi), Eastlands Library and Kaloleni Library —all of which are BookBunk project libraries and all colonial buildings readapted to serve the host communities nearby. Participants included city musicians like Sanaipei Tande, and Wakadinali’s Scar Mkadinali, poets like Teardrops, fiction writers like Yvonne Owuor, Dotto Rangimoto, Irene Ndiritu, Nneka Arimah, Linda Musita, and Zukiswa Wanner, and literary archivists like James Murua of Writing Africa all focused on celebrating the city space that is Nairobi and beyond. Themed ‘Mtaa Narratives’, which borrows from Nairobi’s Sheng, meaning hood or area, the festival took its cues and celebrated ideas and stories from Nairobi and beyond.
Additionally, the Kenyan Readathon 2023 begins today. This year’s readathon is the fourth edition and was announced a while back. Held each September, it has since inception become a critical intervention in the country’s cultural life, spurring debates about reading, language and publishing. The month-long readathon, hosted by Lexa Lubanga, a literary enthusiast, and an advocate for reading, Meja Mwangi, serves to promote Kenyan literary works of the traditional canon and contemporary oeuvre. The prompts for this year are already out. The weekly prompts are curated with a fun flair and seek to suggest different but related ways of getting the reading done. The group read for this edition is Micere Githae Mugo’s Daughter of My People Sing (1976). It promises to be an exciting opportunity for indulgence in Kenyan literature. We at Asymptote hope you enjoy it!
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