Asymptote editor-at-large and accomplished poet and translator Alex Cigale is hard at work on a forthcoming book of translations of neo-futurist Serge Segay’s poetry titled exoDICKERING: Compositions 1963-1985, and recently set up a Kickstarter campaign to help him finish his work. In part one of a conversation with Asymptote Blog, Cigale talks about the roots of Russian Futurism and its modern inheritors, politics at play in Russian poetry, and the unique challenge of translating a linguistic system that associates every letter of the alphabet with a feeling-sense (and a color!).
Interviews
Interview with Alex Cigale: Part I
"As is true for many of my current projects, for the first fifteen years of reading him, my feeling was: Untranslatable."
Who is your favorite fictional character of all time?
In this exact moment it is a three-way tie: Achilles, Omar Little (The Wire), and Sherlock Holmes.
Last night, at an intimate jazz bar hidden away on one of Berlin’s many courtyards, Readux books presented its gorgeous second set of books. Hardly larger than the next generation of cell phones, these little books are designed for brief escapes, mini-breathers away from your screen (although they’re of course also available as ebooks, who are we kidding?).
There were readings, short discussions, and delicious and plentiful vodka tonics, spring was very much in the air—it’s no coincidence that these books do well on lunch-break benches underneath Berlin’s tender first blossomings. READ MORE…
Sean Cotter answers our Proust Questionnaire
"Translators should pay better attention than any other reader, and the translator should be at least as creative as the original author."
What is your favorite word in any language? Which word do you find most difficult to translate?
mda.
I don’t translate words, but works, authors, “the whole surround.”
Farewell to Chutzpah!
"Disappointingly, Chutzpah!’s life was cut short just as we got to the point where we had...consistent(ly)...high-quality pieces."
The radically cosmopolitan Chutzpah! announced on 20 February that it will shut down. This news was greeted with great dismay among the many followers of the beautiful print magazine. In a short period of time, Chutzpah! had established itself as the Chinese literary journal du jour. Not only did it introduce important contemporary Western voices such as Roberto Bolaño, Jesmyn Ward and Junot Diaz to the Chinese reading public via Chinese translation, it also presented a dazzling range of emerging Chinese voices, showcasing even ethnic minorities. Many of these authors have also been translated into English for the English mini-journal that is inserted within the pages of the journal. In this way, the magazine connects the latest crop of Chinese writers to English-speaking readers.
As a co-collaborator with Chutzpah! on two occasions (first, for a simultaneous publication in the October 2012 issue and, second, for a panel of literary editors in Beijing in January 2013), we were naturally saddened by the magazine’s closure and wanted to find out more. So our Editor-in-Chief Lee Yew Leong arranged for the following interview with Chutzpah!‘s English editor Austin Woerner. READ MORE…
An Interview with Javier Molea
"Basically, no one knows what great Latin American writers are teaching in New York."
Since beginning at McNally Jackson ten years ago, Javier Molea has stretched his title as bookseller to its absolute limits. In the process, he has positioned himself firmly at the crux of a burgeoning New York Spanish-language literary community. READ MORE…
If you could have been born in a culture other than your own, which would you have chosen? Why?
By no means can I think about it! Never! READ MORE…
When Benjamin reached over for a guitar, the last thing I expected to hear come out of his mouth was a Hank Williams song. You see, Benjamin grew up and learned how to play music in a small town in Nagaland, the region in the northeastern periphery of India that is considered isolated and remote from the rest of the continent. (It requires special permits to visit.) Benjamin sat back slowly strummed the guitar and played some of the most haunting renditions of American country-western songs I have ever heard.
Who is your favorite fictional character of all time?
Seriously? That’s not fair, is it? This questionnaire is hard. Although now that I think about it: Death. I’ve never met a portrayal of Death that wasn’t incredible.
On January 22, translator Lucas Klein posted Translation & Translation Studies as a Social Movement, responding to a LARB review of Mo Yan’s Sandlewood Death that only fleetingly mentioned its translator, Howard Goldblatt. The post went viral, and rightly so: Xiao Jiwei’s unfortunate review was symptomatic of the predominant tendency to make translators invisible—a tendency that hurts not only the translators themselves, Klein argues, but the quality of translations and literary criticism as a whole. The solution? Translators must organize—demanding respect commensurate with their role in shaping the world. An interview with Asymptote. READ MORE…
On the first Malay-Language Translations of Stephen King and Neil Gaiman
Amir Muhammad, founder of Buku Fixi [Fixi Books], talks with Asymptote
Buku Fixi, established in 2011, is a Petaling Jaya, Malaysia-based publisher of Malay-language novels with a focus on contemporary urban themes. Buku Fixi includes three other imprints: “Fixi Novo,” which publishes English-language books, “Fixi Retro,” which publishes out-of-print Malay titles, and “Fixi Verso,” highlighting bestsellers in translation. Buku Fixi’s founder, Amir Muhammad, also founded Matahari Books in 2007, publishes non-fiction titles in English and Malay, and is an active writer and filmmaker.
Just this month, Fixi published the first Malay translations of a Stephen King novel, JOYLAND, and a Neil Gaiman novel, THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE (translated as LAUTAN DI HUJUNG LORONG). Why do you think it’s taken so long for these bestselling authors to be translated into Malay? READ MORE…
Who is your favorite fictional character of all time?
Too hard a question as it would require me to remember all the books I’ve read.
Víctor Rodríguez Núñez (Havana, 1955) is one of Cuba’s most outstanding and celebrated contemporary writers. Collections of his poems appear throughout Latin America and Europe, and he has been the recipient of major awards all over the Spanish-speaking world, most recently Spain’s 2013 Alfons el Magnànim International Poetry Prize for his book, desde un granero rojo (from a red barn). Known as a charismatic reader, he has been a riveting presence at most of the major international literary festivals for over a decade, having read in more than twenty countries. In the last several years, Rodríguez Núñez has begun to develop an enthusiastic English-reading audience as two book-length translations of his work have appeared in the UK, along with a chapbook in the United States, as well as poems in prominent American and British journals.
Frisch and Co. is an electronic books publisher based in Berlin that focuses on contemporary world literature translated into English. The company has partnered with numerous international publishers and releases its books through traditional ebook marketplaces and in DRM-free format on its website. E.J. van Lanen is the founder of the press.