This week, our editors report on the cancellation of a controversial comics festival in France; the Arabic-language launch of an important literary account of Spanish colonization; and the awardees from one of China’s most prestigious prizes in children’s literature. Read on to find out more!
Kathryn Raver, Assistant Managing Editor, reporting from France
The fifty-third annual Angoulême International Comics Festival—a renowned celebration of comics and graphic novels slated to take place January 29 – February 1, and which I have written about for Asymptote twice in the past—has been cancelled for 2026. Save for one cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this is the first time in the festival’s history that it will not be taking place.
The festival’s organizers, a group called 9e Art+, announced the news in early December, asserting that this cancellation is due to lack of funding. However, authors and contributors—including Anouk Ricard, the winner of the festival’s grand prix last year—have been raising calls to boycott the festival for the past few months following multiple ignored sexual assault cases, un-transparent business practices, and commercial excess. Over four hundred authors called for a boycott in April of 2025, and multiple others have joined the call in the time since.
Visual storytelling has long been an important feature of French culture, from medieval age manuscripts to today’s varied bande dessinées, hence the festival’s importance. In the past, the festival has celebrated authors and illustrators from around the globe, including Alison Bechdel (Fun Home; Dykes to Watch Out For), Posy Simmonds (Cassandra Darke), and even a whole exhibition on the groundbreaking work of Riad Sattouf. Hundreds of thousands of people attend the festival, which in itself is populated by thousands of publishers and creators, every year.
Though this news undoubtedly comes as a disappointment for regular festival-goers and bande dessinée enthusiasts, all hope is not lost! A collective of authors, illustrators, and graphic novel-lovers are hosting a Grand Off in Angoulême on the same dates as the original festival would have been held. Though it seems this event will have a smaller international component, with over 100 workshops, signings, expositions, and other events, the Grand Off promises to be just as festive and full of wonder as the original festival (and this one is free to all!).
Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Editor-at-Large, reporting from the Philippines
Marking a pivotal moment for both literature and culture, Filipino revolutionary and polymath José Rizal’s novel Noli me tángere (1887) has been translated into Arabic for the first time. The social realist satire, an incendiary nineteenth-century exposé of the Spanish colonisation of the Philippines (1565-1898), will now be available to nearly five hundred million Arabic speakers worldwide.
Translated from the Spanish original by Dr Reyadh Mahdi Jasim Al-Najjar, a professor of Spanish at the University of Baghdad’s College of Language, the Arabic edition is titled لا تلمسني (La talmusni). The translated manuscript was handed over to Iraq’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Hisham Al-Alawi, at a ceremony on 10 December 2025, which marked fifty years of diplomatic relations between the Republic of the Philippines and the Republic of Iraq.
The project was conceived in 2024 by the Philippine Ambassador to Iraq, Charlie Pacaña Manangan, himself a member of the civic organisation Knights of Rizal. It received funding from the National Historical Commission of the Philippines and support from the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs – Office of Cultural Diplomacy.
Originally published in Berlin, Germany, in 1887 to evade Spanish censorship, Noli me tángere is a magnum opus of anti-imperialist Philippine literature. Through the story of Crisóstomo Ibarra, it exposed Spanish friar hegemony, administrative corruption, military brutality, and systemic racial injustice in the archipelago, all fuelling nationalist sentiment. The novel helped lay the groundwork for the Philippine Revolution against the Spanish Empire, which culminated in independence in 1898. The novel is required reading in Philippine schools, and has appeared in more than forty foreign and Philippine languages, from Czech to Cebuano Binisaya (with at least ten differing translations in English alone since 1900), but never before in Arabic.
Scheduled to launch sometime in 2026, the new translation is being promoted to academes and policymakers across the Southwest Asia and North African region, which is home to almost three million Filipinos. Adding to these cultural endeavours, the Philippine Embassy has instituted dedicated José Rizal corners in libraries at the Catholic University in Erbil, the Nineveh University in Mosul, the American University of Kurdistan in Duhok, among other institutions.
This development follows a recent European translation. Late 2025, the Philippine Embassy in Rome launched a new Italian rendition of Noli me tángere, translated by Simone Camassa, distinct from the 2003 version (by Vasco Caini for Livorno-based Edizioni Debatte). Alongside this new translation, the Embassy launched Gotico Tropicale, the first Italian translation of National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin’s short story collection Tropical Gothic, translated by Camassa and Isabella Talenti.
Reflecting on the value of literary translations, Nathaniel ‘Neal’ Imperial, Philippine Ambassador to Italy stated, ‘The translation of important Philippine books is vital for the dissemination and diffusion of ideas and the introduction of works of the imagination to other countries and cultures.’
Hongyu Jasmine Zhu, Editor-at-Large, reporting from China
On November 13, my reading heart found its way to Shanghai for the award ceremony of the Feng Zikai Chinese Children’s Picture Book Award 豐子愷兒童圖畫書獎. Launched in Hong Kong in 2009 by the Chen Yet-Sen Family Foundation, this biannual award honors Feng Zikai (1898–1975), China’s pioneering comics artist and a poet of the ink wash line.
From the 418 Chinese-language titles published across eight countries in 2023 and 2024, five picture books were given accolades, with two hailing from China, one from Hong Kong, and two from Taiwan—colorful additions to my holiday reading list. The Hong Kong title, 小高的遊樂場 (The Playground of Little Jumbo), written and illustrated by 林建才 Kinchoi Lam, invites us to travel with the titular tram over a century of change on Victoria Peak. As trees weather the seasons, as they root and regrow with the city rising around them—from a bare hillside, to colonial-era imported species, to wartime bombardment—we’re reminded that life can be as delicate as the leaves and birds around us, and meanwhile as vast as the world they make up.
The titles from Taiwan are 山左大力士 (The Strong Man on the Left Side of the Mountain), illustrated and written by 楊子葦 Tzu-Wei Yang; and 小威的眼睛 (Willy’s Eyes), written and illustrated by 杜宛霖 Wanlin Du. The former introduces us to the strong man who can lift a sheep with one finger and an entire flock with one hand; he is now ready to prove how lifting a mountain would be a piece of cake, leaving us in suspense on how he’ll make good on his boast and what awaits on the right side of the mountain. The latter’s protagonist, Willy, is blind, but “still sees with his eyes closed.” He sees the way to each room in the house even with the lights out; he sees people’s laughter by the seaside; the warmth of his kitten Mary like a cup of herbal tea; and after his good friend’s grandfather passes away, Willy sees his friend’s sadness—in fact, he’s the first person to do so, because Willy sees with his heart.
From China comes 驯河童子 (The Child Who Tames the River), written by 廖小琴 Xiaoqin Liao and illustrated by 阿涩 Asir. Every flooding season, the ancient Liangzhu people of Rice Paddy Village entrust their fate to a child guardian. This year, the duty falls to Aya, who’s not fluent in the ritual dances or wrestling moves that come easily to his predecessors. But when he whispers before the furious waters, “You’ve had a long, hard journey,” the river’s years of weariness are finally heard. Meanwhile, in writer 唐亚明 Yaming Tang and illustrator 周翔 Xiang Zhou’s 木拉提爷爷，你去哪儿? (Where Are You Going, Grandpa Mulati?), an old man receives a letter from an old buddy in Beijing and embarks on a journey of friendship—but trains or planes are out of the question for his three little donkeys. As the story unfolds in gouache collages, will the kindness of strangers along the way help them reach their destination at last?
I am hopeful that one day these titles will be translated into other languages, traveling into the hands and hearts of many more people of all ages. As picture book creator Sydney Smith remarked in his keynote speech: “childhood is a perfect state in which to witness the sublime and experience awe.” Perhaps, then, children’s picture books are among the perfect places to find worlds contained in a simple word, a line of light, and a single splash of color.
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