This week’s dispatches from our editors-at-large make clear the power of literature in translation to cross borders and enlarge perspectives. From a report on a beloved literary festival that feels like a trip around the world, a breakout hit that is bringing local literature to a global stage, to an award ceremony honoring a novel that will reach millions held while its author was in solitary confinement, read on to find out more.
Shatha Abd El Latif, Editor-at-Large, Reporting on Palestine
Basem Khandakji, freed Palestinian prisoner and Arabic Booker Prize winner, is set to release the first translation of his novel A Mask, the Colour of the Sky in English come March 2026. Khandakji won the Arabic Booker for this work back in 2024 while he was still imprisoned by the Zionist authorities before his was freed as a part of prisoner exchange deal and exiled to Egypt in 2025. In the wake of the Booker Prize win, Khandakji was punished with solitary confinement for twelve days. (Khandakji is not the first imprisoned Palestinian writer to be the subject of colonial torture following a historic achievement; Walid Daqqa, author of The Oil’s Secret Tale, and his family were attacked by Israeli police after his work was published from prison.) Khandakji’s family, radical bookshop owners in the eastern side of Nablus, Palestine, received the award on his behalf in Abu Dhabi.
Translated by Addie Leak and published by Europa Editions, the prison-born 2023 text will become available to Anglophone readers for the first time three years after its publication by Dar Al Adab in Beirut, Lebanon. Khandakji’s novel is the first in a trilogy, the final book of which will become available to readers in Arabic early this year. Khandakji’s epic work, concerned, in entangled ways, with ruthless and wresting truths about language, identity and the terrors of Zionism in Palestine, is coming out in English at a boiling point in history. As states and institutions become more hostile against Palestinians by the hour, one wonders what new trajectory will Khandakji’s work take in this light.
A Mask, the Colour of the Sky’s release in English will open up a new genealogy of the text that cannot be isolated from its origin. The colonial policing of each book release and the constant tracking down and surveilling of the author and his loved ones speaks to how much the prison, as a colonial institution and the text’s site of production, is wound up in its post-prison afterlife. What I am trying to ask is: how do we go on reading the translation, and interpreting the work, while acknowledging these as processes inseparable from the carceral institution, rooted in power and violence?
Andriana Hamas, Editor-at-Large, Reporting from Bulgaria
What a great year for Bulgarian literature in translation 2025 was! And while it is true that a myriad of people, from writers and translators to publishing house assistants and agents, contributed to the general bookish drive, it is also undeniable that one author stood out as the main force behind the country’s appreciation among foreign audiences.
Renowned novelist Georgi Gospodinov’s Death and the Gardener (translated into English by Angela Rodel) was probably the most widely read and reviewed piece of local literature to reach the global stage in the last few years. Most recently, the book was mentioned among the key 2025 novels in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’s prestigious list. A couple of weeks before that, another German media outlet, SWR, even named it the best novel of the year. Needless to say, these December tributes followed in a long line of discerning appraisals in the pages of prominent outlets, such as the Financial Times, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and, naturally, our own Asymptote.
As is often the case, with a critically-acclaimed bestseller in translation, Death and the Gardner did make its country of origin a lot more visible on the universal literary map. What is more, it convinced readers all around the world that the echo of human life resonates well beyond national borders, an especially poignant conclusion in the twenty-first century. Just last night, for example, Gospodinov shared via Facebook a letter he had received from a Türkiye-based Azeri doctor. A part of it read: “Every day, without us even realizing it, countless gardens are left without their gardener…”.
Thanks to Gospodinov’s book, however, we know we will not be left without our storytellers.
Zohra Salih, Editor-at-Large, reporting from India
The country’s biggest annual literary celebration concluded last week as the Jaipur Literature Festival wrapped up its 19th iteration, held between January 15 and 20 at Hotel Clarks Amer in Jaipur. I have been a regular attendee of the JLF since my undergraduate years and in 2020 and 2021 had the privilege of being part of its esteemed programming team. Having experienced the festival from both sides, I am keenly aware of the immense labour that underpins an event of this scale and transforms it into such a worthy spectacle.
The venue itself lends the festival a distinctive sense of sprawl. I have often found myself happily lost among colourful stalls and crowded halls, allowing the senses to take over: unending arrays of books, thoughtful conversations, drifting music, and the lingering aroma of food and chai everywhere. It is a space where many facets of culture come together in the name of literature. Seasoned attendees know to arrive prepared, with both a sturdy bag for books and enough sustenance to endure all the ground one intends to cover.
And it is truly international in flavour. I have always felt that the days spent attending the festival resemble a tour across the world. This year’s line-up, as is par for the course, was glittering, featuring International Booker Prize winner Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi, former International Booker-winning translator Daisy Rockwell, Booker Prize winner Richard Flanagan, recent Booker nominee Kiran Desai, and celebrated names such as Alice Oswald, Geoff Dyer, Jeet Thayil, Anuradha Roy, Esther Freud, and Stephen Alter. As co-founder Namita Gokhale observes, “In a way, almost everything in the world finds its place here.”
Beyond the literary sessions, a major highlight is Jaipur Bookmark, which serves as a unique platform for publishers across South Asia, committed to strengthening independent and regional publishing networks. Now in its 13th edition, Jaipur Bookmark placed the Marathi language centre stage this year, alongside conversations on the role of AI in publishing. The platform partnered with the Royal Norwegian Embassy as its country partner.
A memorable moment came from veteran screenwriter, lyricist, and poet Javed Akhtar’s session on poetry, cinema, and society, where he observed that secularism cannot be instilled through crash courses but must be understood and lived as a way of life.
Finally, in exciting news, the Jaipur Literature Festival is set to host its first international edition in Valladolid, Spain, from June 11 to 14. Those in the city, don’t miss this one!
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