Language: Pangasinan

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

Literary updates from the Philippines, Bulgaria, and India!

This week, our Editors-at-Large report on the latest in literary news from the Philippines, Bulgaria, and India. From an open submission call for Filipino literature in translation, to a controversial AI-focused poetry competition in Bulgaria and a series of award-winning Indian titles, read on to learn more.

Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Editor-at-Large, reporting from the Philippines

Kritika Kultura, a scholarly journal of literary, language, and cultural studies published semi-annually by Ateneo de Manila University is now welcoming submissions for a Special Literary Section on Filipino Literature in Translation. Placing particular emphasis on literary translations from nearly two hundred Philippine languages into English, this special literary section will cast a critical light on the often-unseen compromises and negotiations involved in bringing these works to the Anglosphere.

Guest-edited by translator, poet, and scholar Dr Christian Jil Benitez, the folio seeks to offer more than translation. ‘The special literary section aims to show the variety of ways translators from Philippine languages mediate Filipino literature with the Anglophone world linguistically, culturally, and even institutionally,’ he said.

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Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

The latest in literary developments from the Philippines, the Hispanophone US, and Bulgaria!

This week, our editors report on the state of regional, multilingual literature from the Philippines, the Feria internacional del libro de Nueva York, and the Frankfurt Book Fair and its presentation of Bulgarian writing. Read on to find out more!

Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Editor-at-Large, reporting from the Philippines

Panel discussions on publishing and writing served as pre-workshop events to the forthcoming Cordillera Creative Writing Workshop (CCWW). Dubbed Hobwal, book talks were co-presented by indie presses Milflores Publishing, Baguio Writers Group, and multilingual children’s book publisher Aklat Alamid. Ryan Guinaran, Dumay Solinggay, Richard Kinnud, and Sherma Benosa, writers working in Ibaloy, Kankanaey, Ifugao, and Ilokano respectively, spotlighted the panel on writing in the mother tongue. Last year’s workshop instalment featured panelists like Genevieve L Asenjo, International Writing Programme alumna and De La Salle University-MFA Creative Writing program faculty, known for her writings in/translation from the Kinaray-a and Hiligaynon. Other discussions centred on pandemic writings, Baguio City’s literary cartography, and climate fiction.

The University of the Philippines-Baguio’s College of Arts & Communication, and Cordillera Studies Center grant CCWW fellowships to emerging poets, fictionists, and essayists writing in 15 northern Luzon languages—from Bontoc to Ivatan, Kalinga to Gaddang, and major languages Kapampangan, Ilokano, Pangasinan, Filipino, and English. In a country where national writing workshops, awards, prizes, and festivals put premium to English and Filipino, so-called regional endeavours like the CCWW have epitomised what it means to be multilingual, thus sincerely national. READ MORE…