Happy Friday, Asymptote pals! We’re one-and-a-half weeks past the release of our latest issue and it’s a stunner—including dazzling superstar names like Ismail Kudare, Patrick Modiano, and Valeria Luiselli, among so many others. Blog co-editor Katrine even wrote up a little feature on a personal favorite of hers (check it out here!). Or you could swing back with the five must-reads we blog team recommended at issue launch. Or you could close your eyes and click at random. You’re sure to land on a gold mine either way. READ MORE…
News
Weekly News Roundup, 24th July 2015: Americans Make Up Things
This week's literary highlights from across the world
July Issue Highlight: On Rainbows and Resistance
Blog editor Katrine Øgaard Jensen recommends one of her favorite reads from our brand new issue
In case you’re hungry for more recommendations after reading the blog’s 5 Must-Read Pieces from our New July Issue, here’s a write-up about something that’s stuck with me since its publication last Wednesday.
In our latest issue of Asymptote, I was particularly excited to discover three poems by Turkish Gökçenur Ç, author of six poetry collections and Turkish translator of Wallace Stevens, Paul Auster, and Ursula K. Le Guin. I was drawn in by Gökçenur Ç’s first poem, “We’re in the World, So Are Words, How Nice that We’re All Here,” in which intriguingly short, self-contained thoughts such as “Morning is hissing like an empty tap” and “The shadow of a hawk strikes your shadow, / neither you nor the hawk is aware of this” make up the entire piece. This is also the format of the third poem, “I Watch with Love Like a Stupid Student,” which wraps up the three poems nicely.
Weekly News Roundup, 17th July 2015: EXTRA! EXTRA!
This week's literary highlights from across the world
It’s Friday, aren’t you glad? We’re glad. We’re especially glad because of the fresh-off-the-presses July issue we released this Wednesday! Don’t know where to start? You can check up on the blog’s helpful listicle highlighting just five must-reads from the July issue. Or you could simply take a gander, as there’s no way you can go wrong: we’ve got some heavy hitters this time around (like Ismail Kudare, Can Xue, Cia Rinne, and Patrick Modiano), so even blindfolded, you’re sure to land a home run—especially in this issue’s super-sparkly multilingual feature. READ MORE…
Hot off the digital presses!
Asymptote‘s July Issue is now totally, utterly live! This one’s a good one, and highlights are almost too many to mention—almost. We’ve got your usual lot of literary celebs in the mix, including French Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano, Chinese Nobel Prize-worthy writer Can Xue, and an interview with longtime friend of the blog Valeria Luiselli in the mix—among so. many. others. Here are five must-reads to get you going, but this list’s by no means conclusive—and is presented in no particular order: READ MORE…
Weekly News Roundup, 10 July 2015: THE MAN. THE BOOKER. THE MEGAPRIZE.
This week's literary highlights from across the world
Happy Friday, friends! This should be a Friday like any other, but we’ve got a secret to share: Asymptote‘s July issue is just around the corner. There are a lot of top-secret and super-awesome things in store this quarter, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled on our home base in the coming days (!).
If Asymptote deals in world/global/international/whatever-you’d-like-to-term-it literature, domestic literature still does quite a bit in taking custody of national identity and mythology. So how is it that Vladimir Nabokov—admittedly as Russian as he was American—captured Americana so perfectly in his most famous novel, Lolita? And Spain‘s most famous novel—often considered the “first novel”—is terribly influential, but only two in ten Spanish readers admit to having read Cervantes’s Don Quixote. And if we agree that national literatures have any stability—which we don’t, at least not necessarily—we might be able to sustain the hypothesis that British television can attribute its popularity with American viewers to the fact that U.S. literature is simply “too dark.” Hm. READ MORE…
Weekly News Roundup, 3 July 2015: When Did You Become a Blog Reader?
This week's literary highlights from around the world
Happiest Friday, Asymptote pals! For those of us north of the equator, this summer season bodes lots of sweat and sunshine. Here’s some Internet reading to keep you occupied.
Japanese novelist and perennial point of Nobel speculation Haruki Murakami’s identified the very moment he became a novelist: at a baseball game. (Do you remember becoming a blog reader, dear one?). And over at the Paris Review, more behind-the-scenes author insight: here’s a full, unedited recording of an interview with Polish poet, translator, and all-around phenom Czeslaw Milosz. READ MORE…
Contributing editor Antony Shugaar‘s translation of Massimo Carlotto’s Gang of Lovers was published by Europa Editions on 2 June 2015.
Assistant editor Bradley Schmidt recently had a translation of Florian Wacker’s piece “Transit” published in Exchanges Literary Journal.
Drama editor Caridad Svich has edited a new book for TCG with the title INNOVATION IN FIVE ACTS. The book just launched at their national conference in Cleveland June 18-20, 2015, and is now available on amazon for pre-order.
Senior editor (Chinese) Chenxin Jiang‘s translation of Xiao Bai’s acclaimed literary noir French Concession is published by HarperCollins in the US this month. Furthermore, an excerpt from Chenxin’s forthcoming translation of Swiss author Zsuzsanna Gahse’s novel Volatile Texts was featured on the Three Percent blog.
Weekly News Roundup, 26th June 2015: Plagiarism You Don’t Remember
This week's literary highlights from across the world
Hey guys, happy Friday!
We frequently report happy awards-news (and don’t worry, we’ve got a bit this week, too). But unhappy literary awards news? Forget about it—until now. South Korean Man Asian Book Prize-winner Shin Kyung-Sook has (sort of) admitted to pilfering passages from Japanese writer Yukio Mishima’s work. Apparently, she “can’t trust her own memory” on the issue. Hm. And speaking of South Korean bestsellers—apparently the Talmud is a hot-ticket bestseller right now.
We’ve spoken about the buzz surrounding Algerian writer Kamel Daoud’s Prix Goncourt-winning (originally French-language, recently translated into English by John Cullen) The Meursault Investigation, itself a riff on Albert Camus’ legendary The Stranger—here’s another great review at NPR. Speaking of literary rivalries/riffs, here’s what Irish writer playwright George Bernhard Shaw thought of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. READ MORE…
Weekly News Roundup, 19th June 2015: Schadensorrow, Bloomsday.
This week's literary highlights from across the world
Happy Friday, Asymptote pals! In the Internet, especially in the Translation Deep-Web we at Asymptote wander in, clickbait articles about “untranslate-able words” are so common we hardly register them any more. But articles about untranslate-able words that don’t exist yet—that’s another thing entirely. Why doesn’t “Schadenfreude” have an antonym?
You probably noted that this past week marked Bloomsday, a holiday for the literati invented by Irish writer James Joyce—who inspires fear and awe in most English-language readers. Not the case in China, apparently, where Finnegans Wake is a bestseller and several Joycean works, including the ominous Ulysses, have been adapted to the stage. In other unlikely artsy feel-good stories: you’ve probably never heard of Annecy, France (unless you went there for study-abroad like a certain roundup contributor). Here’s how a little picaresque French town became central in the international film circuit. But France isn’t the only country with an on-the-ball film scene: here’s why Chilewood should be on your radar. READ MORE…
Weekly News Roundup, 12th June 2015: What’s Pure Prose & Poetry?
This week's literary highlights from across the world
Happy Friday, Asymptote friends!
Big congratulations to the new poet laureate of the United States, Juan Felipe Herrera! Herrera attended the University of Iowa and his current gig is a direct update from his last one (he spent the past two years as poet laureate of the state of California, where he’s from).
Meanwhile, recommended reading abounds. The Millions reviews French-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud’s The Meursault Investigation, big winner of the Prix Goncourt and only recently appearing in John Cullen’s English translation (would have been nice to know this from the review—but, alas). In the Paris Review Daily, former blog contributor and all-around translator/thinker/writer extraordinaire Damion Searls argues for a lesser-known (stateside, at least) Norwegian writer: Jon Fosse. According to Searls: in the Beatles band of Norwegian lit, Fosse is George, “the quiet one, mystical.” Hmm. If Fosse is a pure/prose/poet, it’s important to remember the dutiful audacity of prose-at-large: how should we remember what and how prose writing accomplishes what it does? (I’d like to wager that translation plays a vital role in revealing the mechanics of language. But that’s just me). READ MORE…
Weekly News Roundup, 5th June 2015: Don’t Write Your Memoir.
This week's literary highlights from across the world
Happiest of Fridays, Asymptote pals! This is the first week Katrine, new blog co-editor, is on board—so let’s give her a big web-round-of-applause (tapping on the keyboard in the comments section helps). Hi Katrine! You might recognize Katrine because she was a judge for the Best Translated Book Award so, yeah—she’s a celeb.
Speaking of celebs, our former Central Asia Editor-at-Large, Alex Cigale, recently guest-edited a section on Russian poetry over at the Atlanta Review—it’s definitely worth checking out (and look for a blog interview on the guest-editing process soon). If you are a fan of the Norwegian Nobel Prizewinning bard, Tomas Transtömer, here’s a treat—his final interview given before his death, in translation. And, speaking of poetry—the New Yorker has an interesting piece on Jihadi poetry and what it means to share some words.
Multitasking artists: American playwright Tennessee Williams took up painting, once (just like American ex-President Dubya, whose outsider-art paintings I frankly prefer). And Dany Lafferière, a Haitian novelist who came of age in Canada, is the first non-French citizen to be admitted in the prestigious Académie Française.
What are your favorite authors’ favorite words? Here’s a little list. And what’s your favorite curse word—it might not have existed too long ago (except, of course, for “fart,” which has stood the test of time).
How does it feel to write and never be read? Most of us know, all too bitterly. But perennial Nobel-speculation and speculative-fiction writer, Canadian novelist/poet Margaret Atwood, has written for a library that won’t be available for another one hundred years. Will we all be screened-up e-readers by then? The Chicago Tribune thinks not. Nine hundred years later, we’re still collectively obsessed with the old Icelandic god, Loki, though. What gives?
Finally, please, and for the love of God—unless you are Karl Ove (in which case it is already too late): delete your memoir. If it’s written from a female perspective, it’s less likely to win any big prizes, anyway (ugh), unless, of course, it is the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction (congrats Ali Smith for How to Be Both, this year’s prizewinner). Prizes aren’t always great, though: even judge Marina Warner (from the Man Booker!) is bemoaning the dearth of world literature available in English—good thing journals like Asymptote are working to buck that trend.
Aamer Hussein (contributing editor) has released a new collection of short stories, entitled 37 Bridges and Other Stories.
Aditi Machado (poetry editor) has a poem anthologized in February as well as four poems out in Web Conjunctions.
Ágnes Orzóy (Hungary editor-at-large) has written an article for Quarterly Conversation on Prae, the monumental 1934 novel by Miklós Szentkuthy, a writer previously introduced in our pages. She has also recently begun to blog for ELit Literaturhaus Europa, an observatory for European contemporary literature focusing chiefly on research, discussion and publishing results concerning literary trends across Europe, as well as inter-cultural communication of literature within Europe. Her first two posts can be read here and here.
Isle-to-Isle, chief executive assistant Berny Tan and Sher Chew’s collaborative data visualization project based on Jules Verne’s classic novel, The Mysterious Island, has come full circle. Berny also recently published a nonfiction, “Ah Ma’s Chilli,” in Junoesq Literary Journal.
Drama editor Caridad Svich‘s new book, Innovation in Five Acts: Strategies for Theatre and Performance, gathering forty-three essays from admired theater professionals discussing techniques for creating theater, is now available for pre-order at Amazon.
On April 26, Chenxin Jiang (senior editor for Chinese content) and Lee Yew Leong (editor-in-chief) took part in Singapore: Inside Out’s Beijing showcase at the contemporary art enclave, 798.
Chris Tanasescu (a.k.a. MARGENTO, Romania editor-at-large) has published an article (co-authored with Research Assistant Andres Lou and Computer Science Professor Diana Inkpen) titled “Multilabel Subject-based Classification of Poetry” in The Proceedings of the Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society Conference; the paper is part of his ongoing project titled The Graph Poem. Alaska-based writer and academic Helena Spector also recently reviewed his book Nomadosophy in Semne Bune (previously reviewed in Asymptote here).
Diana George (proofreader) published a new story, “Wara Wara,” in the Spring 2015 issue of Conjunctions as well as a review of Antoine Volodine’s Writers in 3:AM magazine.
Contributing editor Ellen Elias-Bursac‘s translation of David Albahari’s novel, Gotz and Meyer, has been republished by Dalkey Archive.
Joshua Craze (nonfiction editor) published an essay on the conflict in South Sudan with Creative Time Reports. He also has an essay in the catalogue for Jenny Holzer’s exhibition, War Paintings, currently on display at the Museo Correr in Venice; a version of this essay was also featured in Media-N. His essay on redaction appeared recently in the collected volume Dissonant Archives: Contemporary Visual Cultures and Contested Narratives in the Middle East.
Julia Sherwood (Slovakia editor-at-large) and Peter Sherwood (past contributor) have published an extract of Czech writer Zuzana Brabcová’s The Year of Pearls, in Words Without Borders’s queer issue, out today. Their extract of Ján Rozner’s autobiographical novel Seven Days to the Funeral also appeared in BODY.Literature.
The first full-length poetry collection, Vulgar Mechanics, of assistant editor Kara Billey Thordarson (pen name K.T. Billey) is a semi-finalist for the 2015 Pamet River prize from YesYes Books. The winner will be announced on August 1.
Lee Yew Leong (editor-in-chief) has published his book-length English translation of Fu-chen Lo’s memoir, From Taiwan to the World and Back, excerpted in the January 2014 issue. He also served as guest editor for the recently launched Issue 53 of Columbia: A Journal of Art and Literature.
Interviews editor Matt Jakubowski has published an experimental work entitled “Corner of the World” in 3:AM magazine.
Marketing manager Rosie Clarke reviewed Richard Weiner’s The Game for Real (translated by Benjamin Paloff) in the May 29 issue of The Times Literary Supplement.
Poetry Foundation ran an essay by Win Bassett (legal advisor) about his summer stint at a hospital and the necessity of poetry.
Weekly News Roundup, 28 May 2015: PEN! BTBA! IFFP!
This week's literary highlights from across the world
Happy Friday, Asymptote! For those of us interested in translation—and the funds to pay for it—the day the PEN/Heim Translation Fund awards/fellowships are announced is always good. Special congrats to Dong Li, Asymptote blog friend—but he’s by no means the only familiar name on the list. Big congrats to all the winners, and the blog wishes you luck on all your projects!
And. Continuing the theme of huge news (for translators, writers, and readers at least—and aren’t we all?), Three Percent has announced the winners for the Best Translated Book Awards! In the fiction category, top honors go to Chinese author Can Xue (who we interviewed in the journal over a year ago) for her novel The Last Lover translated by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen, and Rocío Cerón’s Diorama, which was translated from the Spanish by Anna Rosenwong. Pride note: new blog co-editor, Katrine Jensen, was a member of the judging panel—so you can trust these picks! READ MORE…
Weekly News Roundup, 21 May 2015: Booker, the Man
This week's literary highlights from across the globe
Happy Friday, Asymptoters! You must be rather cozy living under a rock if you haven’t heard the most explosive news of the week: Hungarian writer (and Asymptote contributor!) László Krasznahorkai has won the prestigious International Man Booker Prize this year. He received 60,000 pounds sterling, but a 15,000-pound prize for his English-language translators is split between George Szirtes and Ottilie Mulzet (also contributors to both blog and journal). This year’s snag means things are stacked two-for-two with regard to the Man Booker and Asymptote. Two years ago, Lydia Davis earned top honors—and you can see her work in the journal, herself translating from the Dutch in 2013. Furthermore in lit prizes: at Wall Street Journal, an interview with the most recent “Arab Booker”—also known as the International Prize for Arab Fiction—prizewinner: Tunisian novelist and prizwinner Shukri Mabkhout opens up on novelizing the political crises and opening literary doors in the region. READ MORE…