Dispatches

Weekly Updates from the Front Lines of World Literature

July 3, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Charlie Ng, Jiaoyang Li, and Quyen Nguyen

Bringing the latest in literary news from China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam!

Literature has the fortunate habit of making itself known via a variety of media. This week, our editors from around the world introduce a thrilling TV adaptation from one of China’s most promising authors, the protests in Hong Kong making its way through its censored literatures, and a Vietnamese classic that has been underserved by its celebrated translation.

Charlie Ng, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong:

This week, Hong Kong is stricken by Beijing’s passing of the sweeping new national security law for the city. The law was unanimously passed on June 30 by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, bypassing Hong Kong’s Legislative Council and without consulting the citizens. Details were not even revealed until 11 p.m. on the same day, to be put into effect on July 1. The details of the national security law indicate that the new law has broad offences, can override Hong Kong law, allows trials to be closed to the public, and requires the establishment of a National Security Office in Hong Kong directly controlled by Beijing, among other key points. The priority given to the new law can possibly erode Hong Kong’s judicial independence and be in conflict with Hong Kong’s common law tradition.
Fear towards the establishment of the new national security law has been spreading since the passing of the proposal in late May during the National People’s Congress.

Critics expect that the law will adversely influence Hong Kong’s freedom of expression and citizens’ rights to oppose decisions or policies determined by the government or China. Under such an intense political climate, quite a number of political works have been recently published, striving to defend free speech and publication, including Sociology professor Dr. Chan Kin Man’s Letters from the Prison, as he was sentenced to sixteen months imprisonment for his participation in the Umbrella Movement; and media professional Ryan Lau’s That Night in Yuen Long, which is a work of documentary literature on the 2019 Yuen Long attack.

Meanwhile, regardless of the continued threat of COVID-19, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council decided that the Hong Kong Book Fair would be held as scheduled from July 15 to July 21, under the theme of, “Inspirational and Motivational Reading”. However, with the implement of the new national security law, the publication sector is concerned about the displaying of politically sensitive books at the Book Fair being potentially prosecuted. Some publishers have already suspended the production of some books related to the anti-extradition movement and have given up displaying books related to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Although the actual impact on Hong Kong’s freedom of speech is yet to be fully revealed, tangible effects of fear induced self-censorship are pervasive. READ MORE…

Weekly Updates from the Front Lines of World Literature

June 26, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Daniel Persia and Eva Wissting

Literary news from Brazil and Sweden!

As countries around the world are grappling around the walls of our new reality, their literatures respond in turn to the urgency of contemporary matters and the necessity of recognizing history. In this week’s dispatches, our editors report on publishers in Sweden taking on climate change and the world welcomes new translations of a canonical Brazilian author, among other noteworthy news. Read on to keep up!

Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden

Publisher Natur & Kultur announced in their most recent sustainability report that they aim to become Sweden’s first climate neutral book publisher. The goal is to become climate neutral within 2020, which means that firstly, they will do what they can to minimize climate changing emissions, and secondly, they will compensate for any emissions from their activities or production. Their printing house, located in Estonia, will switch to ecofriendly electricity and they are investigating how to minimize transportation within the publisher’s business. Authors published by Natur & Kultur include historian and former Swedish Academy Permanent Secretary Peter Englund (The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War) and writer, columnist and August Prize winner Lena Andersson (Wilful Disregard and Acts of Infidelity).

Another reminder of the importance of action on climate change arrived recently with the fall edition of the triennial book catalogue from the Swedish book industry organization Svensk Bokhandel. This fall, Sweden’s most prominent environmental activist, and possibly most well-known person overall right now, Greta Thunberg, is having another book published by Polaris Publishing. Last year, photographer Roger Turesson and journalist Alexandra Urisman Otto travelled with Thunberg through Europe and the United States and the book is their depiction of the young environmentalist. Previously published works by Thunberg includes Our House is on Fire, written together with her parents and sister, and No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, which is a collection of her speeches.

Daniel Persia, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Brazil

As Brazil continues to grapple with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, its literary community perseveres. With the recent cancelation of the 26th International Book Fair of São Paulo, originally slated for October 30 to November 8, 2020, publishers, writers, and reviewers have carried the conversation to online platforms such as YouTube, Facebook Live, and Instagram. Despite current flight restrictions and limitations on travel, Brazilian literature continues to cross new frontiers, garnering new readers across the globe. READ MORE…

Weekly Updates from the Front Lines of World Literature

June 19, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Allison Braden, Clémence Lucchini, and José García Escobar

This week’s latest news from Argentina, Central America, and the United States!

This week, our writers bring you the latest news from Argentina, Central America, and the United States. In Argentina, Chris Andrews’s forthcoming translation of César Aira’s novel The Divorce was awarded a PEN Translates award; in Guatemala, a new posthumous collection by Kaqchikel Maya writer Luis de Lión was published; and in the United States, bookstores and libraries have been supporting the Black Lives Matter protests by publishing recommended reading lists. Read on to find out more! 

Allison Braden, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Argentina

English PEN announced the winners of its PEN Translates award earlier this month, and among them was Chris Andrews’s translation of César Aira’s The Divorce, forthcoming from And Other Stories in 2021. The Argentine author and translator continues to have a powerful influence both at home and abroad. His short novel Artforum, published in March by New Directions, earned glowing praise in an April NPR review: “Aira is unencumbered. He does what he does, and what we receive is giddy, unquestionably self-indulgent, and yet absolutely perfect.” The review, it should be noted, doesn’t reference the translator, Katherine Silver. It’s almost unbelievable that Aira can work at such a remarkable pace—he publishes two or three short novels a year—and continue to get such good reviews. (His most recent release in Argentina, Fulgentius, was also lauded.) The good news is that his pace of writing ensures work for translators and new releases into English for years to come.

Perhaps soon there will be a service to have Aira’s new releases delivered to your door monthly. Buenos Aires is a hotbed for independent publishers, and book clubs have sprung up as a way to promote and discuss new offerings. In a market inundated with new books each month—at least until recently—the clubs also provide vetting and a way to make sense of the noise. Some require members to obtain the book themselves, but others do the task of curating and sending members their selections each month. Pez Banana works this way (the name, which means banana fish, is a homage to Salinger). Founded by two veterans of the Buenos Aires publishing industry, Florencia Ure and Santiago Llach, the service sends a new release novel and reading guide each month. Among other book club choices, Bukku also sends out a monthly selection, and the decision of which service to subscribe to may come down to what else is in the box: Bukku deliveries include the book, a bookmark, a playlist curated by the author, and a surprise book-related, locally designed gift. Sign me up.  READ MORE…

Weekly Updates from the Front Lines of World Literature

June 12, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Anna Aresi and Xiao Yue Shan

Find out what's going on in the literary worlds of Japan and Italy in this week's update!

Our editors bring you the latest news in global literature from Italy and Japan this week as COVID-19 continues to make its presence known, the one-hundredth anniversary of Gianni Rodari’s birth is celebrated, and traditionally paper-dependant Japan starts investing in a virtual literary presence. Read on for the scoop!

Anna Aresi, Copy Editor, reporting from Italy:

As is well known to people in the industry, the COVID-19 pandemic has deeply impacted the publishing sector on many levels. In particular, the cancellation of most book fairs has deprived many of an important opportunity to meet fellow publishers, authors, translators and illustrators, to discover new releases to potentially translate, and set up those professional relationships that keep the industry alive. However, as we’ve seen over and over again in these months, the scope of the pandemic’s impact has often been countered with inventive, creative solutions to hold these same events in a different format.

One of the book fairs that had to be canceled was the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, one the most important events for children’s literature, taking place in Bologna, Italy, every spring. Originally scheduled to be postponed, it soon became clear that holding the BCBF in praesentia was not going to be possible, and the event happened virtually this past May.

One of the highlights of this year’s edition was the celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of Gianni Rodari’s birth. Rodari is perhaps the single most important author of children’s books in Italy, having influenced and shaped generations of students, teachers, authors, and illustrators with his poems, short stories, books, and theoretical essays. The BCBF’s website hosts a virtual exhibition, Illustrators for Gianni Rodari, showcasing the works of many Italian artists who’ve illustrated Rodari’s books. In particular, Beatrice Alemagna, an award-winning Italian illustrator based in Paris, participates with her new illustrations for A sbagliare le storie (Telling Stories Wrong), in which an absent-minded grandfather keeps making mistakes when trying to tell the story of Red Riding Hood to her granddaughter, who has to continually correct him. As anyone who’s ever read to young children knows, consistency is key when telling them stories (over and over and . . . over again!), yet as the book shows, deviations from the norm might be as fun and rewarding as the canonical version. Alemagna’s beautiful new visual interpretation of this classic will hopefully be brought to other languages soon! READ MORE…

Weekly Updates from the Front Lines of World Literature

June 5, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Eva Wissting, Jiaoyang Li, and Julia Sherwood

This week's latest literary news from Poland, Sweden, and China!

This week, our writers bring you the latest news from Poland, Sweden, and China. In Poland, Anna Zaranko’s translation of Kornel Filipowicz was awarded the 2020 Found in Translation Award; in Sweden, an anthology will soon be released of writings on coronavirus, featuring many international writers including Olga Tokarczuk; and in China, bookshops are responding to challenging times by moving to online engagement with their reading community. Read on to find out more! 

Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Poland

Since she received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1996, Wisława Szymborska’s poetry has been appreciated around the world, while the work of her partner of twenty-three years, the master story teller Kornel Filipowicz (1913-1990) remained largely unknown outside Poland. Fortunately, this has changed with The Memoir of an Anti-hero by Kornel Filipowicz, published by Penguin Modern Classics in 2019 in a translation by Anna Zaranko. On March 31, Zaranko received the 2020 Found in Translation Award in recognition of her “quietly understated yet immensely evocative rendering of Filipowicz’s prose, which The Sunday Times’s David Mills described as ‘provocative, troubling, awkward, a proper classic.’”

On May 27, the winner of the eleventh Ryszard Kapuściński Award for Literary Reportage, awarded by the City of Warsaw, was announced online (the fourteen-minute video of the ceremony has English subtitles). The prize went to Katarzyna Kobylarczyk for Strup. Hiszpania rozdrapuje rany (The Scab. Spain Scratches its Wounds, 2019 Wydawnictwo Czarne), a book about grappling with historical memory. The jury praised it as “a fascinating story that blends the nightmarish and the grotesque, in which reality reveals its metaphorical dimension. It is proof that one can create real literature relying solely on facts.” READ MORE…

Weekly Updates from the Front Lines of World Literature

May 29, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Allison Braden, Andreea Scridon, Andrew Adair, and Josefina Massot

This week's latest news roundup from the United Kingdom, Argentina, and Mexico!

This week our writer’s bring you the latest news from the United Kingdom, Argentina, and Mexico. In the UK, Oxford Translation Day welcomed past Asymptote contributor Sophie Hughes to talk about her Booker-shortlisted translation of Fernanda Melchor’s Hurrican Season. In Argentina, the rising cases of COVID-19 have prompted the Fundación Filba to organize virtual classes with well-known Latin American writers. In Mexico, booksellers are finding innovative solutions to reach readers as the stores remain closed. Read on to find out more! 

Andreea Scridon, Assistant Editor, reporting from the United Kingdom

Every year, research center Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation hosts Oxford Translation Day, consisting of workshops, readings, and talks, as a prelude of sorts to the award of the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize on the June 13, at its home base of St. Anne’s College, Oxford.

Given this year’s unusual global situation, Oxford Translation Day is taking place online over the span of several weeks. We are particularly looking forward to Asymptote contributor Sophie Hughes’s talk on her Booker-shortlisted translation of Fernanda Melchor’s Hurricane Season (Fitzcarraldo Editions), which we’ve featured here and here, on June 13. Another event that seems particularly intriguing is poet and translator A.E. Stallings’s discussion of two contemporary Greek female poets, Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke and Kiki Dimoula, also on June 13. READ MORE…

Weekly Updates from the Front Lines of World Literature

May 22, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Daljinder Johal and Julia Sherwood

This week’s latest news from Slovakia and the United Kingdom!

This week, our writers bring you the latest news from Slovakia, where European Literature Night took place online, and the United Kingdom, where festivals such as the Big Book Weekend and Hay Festival have begun. Read on to find out more! 

Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Slovakia

Readers of the literary journal Knižná revue voted, unusually, for a scholarly non-fiction title as their Book of the Year. Juraj Drábik’s Fašismus traces the history of fascism, offering a clear definition of the term and clarifying misunderstandings that lead to the label being overused and/or misused. The surprising success of this book with general readers might be explained by the rising popularity of a Slovak neo-Nazi party before the general election earlier this year, raising widespread concern that it might end up in government, which fortunately did not happen.

Like the rest of the world, Slovakia too has been grappling with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The authorities responded early by imposing a comprehensive and strict lockdown. As a result, Slovakia has had one of the lowest death tolls in Europe and the country has started cautiously reopening. While bookshops were closed, one of the biggest online booksellers invited buyers to waive the online discount in favour of struggling publishers in an initiative called “Tip your publisher.” And as soon as they reopened, the country’s president Zuzana Čaputová visited the Bratislava branch of leading independent bookstore Artfórum and encouraged her Facebook followers to keep buying books.

Although many cultural events were cancelled, others managed to reinvent themselves digitally. Unlike elsewhere in Europe, where European Literature Night—a series of readings held for the past twelve years—has been postponed until autumn, the event’s Slovak organisers have pressed on with their ten-day programme of readings, swapping the planned venues for Facebook and all the participating actors wearing face masks. The series kicked off on May 13 with an excerpt from Ivana Dobrakovová’s Matky a kamionisti (Mothers and Truckers), a winner of the 2019 European Union Prize for Literature, followed the next day by Hodiny z olova (Hours of Lead) by Asymptote contributor Radka Denemarková, and on consecutive evenings by readings from works by Timur Vermes, Domenico Starnone, Lars Saabye Christensen, Gaël Faye, Miroslava Svolikova, David Grossman, Ryszard Kapuściński, and Fikry El Azzouzi. The entire series will be available on the Czech Centre’s YouTube channel from May 25. READ MORE…

Weekly Updates from the Front Lines of World Literature

May 15, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Poupeh Missaghi, Sarah Moore, and Xiao Yue Shan

Our editors bring you the latest news from Japan, Iran, and the UK!

This week, our writers bring you the latest news from Japan, Iran, and the United Kingdom: in Japan, Svetlana Alexievich’s The Unwomanly Face of War has been adapted into a manga; in Iran, readers have been mourning the loss of renowned translator Najaf Daryabandari; and in the UK, Hay Festival has revealed its impressive digital programme. Read on to find out more! 

Xiao Yue Shan, Blog Editor, reporting from Japan

There is a methodology in culture-specific product adoption that Japan has perfected in particular: a Starbucks in Kyoto’s Ninenzaka features traditional tatami flooring in an architecturally nostalgic teahouse; otherwise Italian pasta dishes are regularly indoctrinated with mentaiko (pollack roe); and well-regarded literature from other parts of the world are often adapted into the country’s most loved and widely emblematic artform—comics, or manga.

The latest text to receive this treatment is Svetlana Alexievich’s startling, emotive oral history of Soviet women who had experienced firsthand the barbarity and naked humanity of World War II. Written with the avidity of enthralled listening that has become inextricable from her literary style, in turns stoic and breaking, of both soft and difficult memory, it is a book that mends the distance between history and the body. It originally appeared in Japan as 戦争は女の顔をしていない in 2016 via the translation of 三浦 みどり Midori Miura (who had also translated works by Anatoly Pristavkin and Anna Politkovskaya), and can now also be found in the form of serialized comics, drawn and written by prolific manga artist 小梅 けいと Keito Koume, with editorial assistance from fellow comic and Soviet history specialist 速水螺旋人 Rasenjin Hayami. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

May 8, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Eva Wissting, MARGENTO, and Shelly Bhoil

This week’s latest news from Sweden, France, United States, and Tibet!

This week, our writers bring you news from Sweden, where readers have been mourning the loss of two esteemed writers, Per Olov Enquist and Maj Sjöwall; the United States and Europe, where writers and artists have been collaborating for online exhibitions; and Tibet, where the Festival of Tibet has organized an unprecedented “Poets Speak from Their Caves” online event. Read on to find out more! 

Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden

Recently, Sweden lost two of its most prominent writers. On April 25, writer and journalist Per Olov Enquist, also known as P. O. Enquist, died at the age of eighty-five. He first became known to readers outside of Sweden with the novel The Legionnaires (in English translation by Alan Blair) which was awarded the Nordic Prize in 1969. In fact, many of his over twenty novels were awarded, including The Royal Physician’s Visit (translated by Tiina Nunnally), for which he received The August Prize in 1999, the most prestigious literary prize in Sweden. Enquist was also a literary critic, an essayist, a screenwriter, as well as a playwright. Several of his plays premiered on The Royal Dramatic Theatre and were directed by Ingmar Bergman. Furthermore, Enquist translated Friedrich Schiller’s play Mary Stuart and Henrik Ibsen’s Rosmersholm. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

May 1, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Charlie Ng, Daniel Persia, and José García Escobar

Despite setbacks and delays, literature around the world is still going strong.

This week, our writers bring you the latest literary news from Brazil, Central America, and Hong Kong. In Brazil, literary communities are still going strong via online events and livestreams; in Central America, journalists and writers have been reaching audiences through online videos; and in Hong Kong, universities have been putting lecture series online for the public. Read on to find out more!

Daniel Persia, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Brazil

In the midst of rising political tensions, presidential disregard for the ongoing pandemic, and increased social distancing measures at the local and state levels, writers and readers have come together to help shape a new virtual literary landscape in Brazil. Over the past few weeks, with travel restricted and residents urged to stay in their homes, I’ve tuned in via Facebook Live, Instagram Live, Youtube, Google Hangouts, Zoom, and more to engage with authors from across the country. With some livestreams reaching two thousand-plus users in a single session, one thing remains clear: the Brazilian literary community continues strong, with readers now more than ever searching for opportunities to engage in dialogue and debate. To stay connected, you can follow writers and publishers on social media; subscribe to email newsletters; and check out how your local bookstore might be engaged with virtual encounters! READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

April 24, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Allison Braden, Andrew Adair, and Xiao Yue Shan

This week's literary news from Mexico, Argentina, and China!

With much of the world now weeks into lockdown, our writers bring you news of its continued impact upon both the publishing and bookselling industries, as well as on writers’ own responses. In Mexico, authors such as Olivia Teroba and Jazmina Barrera have continued to engage with audiences; in Argentina, bookshops have been embracing solidarity to overcome the current challenges; and in China, the lifting of the lockdown in Wuhan has brought fresh poetry broadcasts and publications along with it. Read on to find out more! 

Andrew Adair, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Mexico

Here in Mexico City, the lockdown has been largely optional, with much frustration over President López Obrador’s casual, relaxed approach before a global pandemic. Until a few weeks ago, there was no lockdown whatsoever, which left people to follow their own moral code when it came to deciding what to stop doing and when. Now, restrictions are in place and movement in the city has calmed down, though with such lackadaisical direction, many still continue to gather. Of course, many more have no choice but to work, as Mexico is the second-most impoverished country in Latin America (Brazil being the first) and many live, not week-to-week, but day-to-day.

And so, with that, we’ve moved online with the rest of the world, shifting many literary conversations to all manner of digital platforms: Zoom, Instagram, YouTube Live—surely you know the drill by now.

One particularly busy author is Olivia Teroba, a newcomer whose first publication of feminist-edged essays, Un lugar seguro (A Safe Place) arrived last year from Paraíso Perdido. Teroba has given workshops and talks through various institutions and bookstores, most notably her Zoom videoconference “New Genealogies” with Casa Tomada, an independent cultural space which has done an impressive job of moving online.

On April 24, la UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) celebrated International Book Day with a series of rousing talks from a wide range of authors as part of their new program #CulturaUNAMenCasa. Topics included, appropriately, “Reading poetry in digital environments,” “Books that save our lives,” and “Feminine Verse in Latin America”—a talk between Claudia Masin and Mexico City-based poet/translator Robin Myers. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

April 17, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Daljinder Johal, Eva Wissting, Poupeh Missaghi, and Sarah Moore

Bringing you the latest in literary news from Sweden, Iran, the UK, and Spain!

This week, our writers bring you the latest news from Sweden, Iran, and the UK. In Sweden, a new translation of Albert Camus’s The Plague is on its way, and the annual children’s book award ALMA has announced Baek Heena as its winner; in Iran, sales of The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree have surged after its nomination for The International Man Booker Prize, and readers have welcomed a Persian translation of Italian writer Paolo Giordano’s new non-fiction work about contagion; in the UK, authors and publishers are proving resourceful after the cancellation of key literary festivals; finally, people around the world have been mourning the death of best-selling Chilean author Luis Sepúlveda, who sadly passed away this week in Spain.  

Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden

Easter in Sweden is usually a time when people have a few days off and either go skiing or open up the country cottage after the winter. This year, however, like in a lot of other places around the world, people have had to alter their plans as traveling was discouraged, even within the country. Unlike most of its neighboring countries, Sweden still allows bookstores as well as most other stores to remain open. Nevertheless, changed habits in a time of social and economic uncertainty has led to a decrease in sales of physical books by 35%. Although sales of e-books have increased by over 10%, bookstores have started plans to lay off employees and renegotiate rent costs, in order to manage a possible prolonged decline in book sales.

One book that nonetheless sells like never before in Sweden at this time, is French Algerian author Albert Camus’s The Plague from 1947. Swedish readers have the book today in a translation by Elsa Thulin from 1948, but a new translation is on the way, by Jan Stolpe, and will be available in stores by the end of April. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

April 10, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Jacqueline Leung, Julia Sherwood, and Nestor Gomez

This week's latest news from El Salvador, Czech Republic, and Hong Kong!

This week, our writers bring you news from El Salvador, where the country’s last remaining indigenous language, Náhuat, has been celebrated; the Czech Republic, where coronavirus is having a huge impact on the book market; and Hong Kong, where organizations such as PEN are using digital initiatives to promote literature during this period of social distancing. Read on to find out more! 

Nestor Gomez, Editor-at-Large, reporting from El Salvador:

Since 2017, Salvadorans have celebrated the National Day of the Náhuat Language. The holiday is in accordance with other international celebrations of ancestral languages as proclaimed by the United Nations in 1999. The National Day of the Náhuat Language is part of an ongoing effort over the past several years to revitalize Náhuat language and culture. Náhuat is the last existing indigenous language of El Salvador; its other indigenous languages of Lenca and Cacaopera/Kakawira are extinct.

El Salvador has had a deeply traumatic history concerning its indigenous population. Its most infamous historical event was in 1932, La Matanza, in which the Salvadoran government suppressed a peasant rebellion and killed over ten thousand protesters, many of them Pipil, the people of Náhuat culture and language. Because of events like La Matanza, the indigenous populations opted to forget their culture and languages, and instead learned and spoke only Spanish, in fear of being revealed as indigenous and executed.

In the past decade, two documentaries have come out focusing on the lives of indigenous people currently living in the few remaining towns where Náhuat is still spoken: the first documentary was released in 2013 and directed by Sergio Sibrían; the second documentary was released in 2015 and directed by Roberto Kofman. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

April 3, 2020  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Andreea Scridon, Barbara Halla, and Xiao Yue Shan

The latest news from Albania, France, and Japan!

Many countries around the world are now weeks into their lockdown, but literature continues to thrive and is necessarily concerned with the current crisis. In Albania, literary events are moved online whilst booksellers are expected to continue working; in France, a Romanian writer and opponent of the Romanian communist regime sadly passed away from coronavirus. In Tokyo, pandemic literature sees a revival. Read on to find out more! 

Barbara Halla, Assistant Editor, reporting from Albania

There was a moment when it felt like an early April literary dispatch from Albania would just be a chance to mourn the events that I was excited about but that never came to pass. Albania registered its first cases of COVID-19 on March 8 and went into full lockdown less than 48 hours after. That obviously means that for almost the entire duration of March, literary news and activities have been scarce. There was one event that I was sad to see postponed: a panel and discussion to be held on the lost voices of Albanian women writers, something that was long overdue.

That being said, Albanians with a literary inclination have found other ways to remain engaged with their reading lists or interests. Radical Sense is a reading group that meets weekly in Tirana to read and discuss radical leftist texts at 28 November, a versatile bookstore/safe space for readers and activists, among its many other uses. Although the physicality of the charming attic where these discussions are held is sacred to the group, participants have taken a page from universities and workplaces across the globe and have just held their first online book club meeting through Zoom. Readings and discussion happen in English, so for those who live in Albania and are interested in participating, you can check in with the lovely owners of 28 November here for more details. READ MORE…