Posts filed under 'Feria de Editores'

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

Literary news from Argentina, Central America, and Bulgaria!

The latest in literary news from around the world, brought to you by our team on the ground. Read on to find out what fellow lovers of letters are up across the globe, from festivals to new publications.

Josefina Massot, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Argentina

In just under a decade since its inception, Argentina’s annual Feria de Editores has become a literary staple. Last weekend, defying the country’s dire economic situation, a record-breaking 18,000 readers packed the halls of Chacarita’s Art Media Complex to purchase titles from over 250 local indie presses, as well as a few dozen others from all corners of the Spanish-speaking world. This year, works in translation featured heavily among the fair’s bestsellers; they included Alejandra Pizarnik’s rendition of Marguerite Duras’s La vie tranquille for Mardulce, Canadian-American Rivka Galchen’s Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch (Todo el mundo sabe que tu madre es una bruja) for Fiordo, American Kelly Link’s fiction in Tomás Downey’s translation for Evaristo, and Italian Davide Sisto’s Posteridades digitales for Katz. Local writers in attendance featured Claudia Piñero, Martín Kohan, Marina Yuszczuk, Hernán Ronsino, and Yamila Bêgné, among many others. Meanwhile, author Margo Glantz traveled all the way from her native Mexico to chat with journalist Demian Paredes on Sunday night, thus wrapping up one of the fair’s most successful editions yet.

Right as one literary feast came to an end, another one kicked off: now in its second edition, the Festival Borges has been hosting talks by major “Georgie geeks” throughout the week. On Monday, writer and physicist Alberto Rojo discussed the relationship between some of Borges’s fictions and quantum theory. Yesterday, academic Lucas Adur tackled Borges’s proximity to pop culture, challenging the perception that he was a solemn writer; Federico Favelli posited some bold parallelisms between the story “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” and some musical pieces from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Later today, renowned critic Beatriz Sarlo will discuss Borges’s hybrid nature as a worldly and peripheral figure —one steeped in the Western canon while also writing from (and about) marginal South America. One thing is clear: despite decades of avid exploration, the Borgesian cosmos remains as vast as ever.

Andriana Hamas, Editor-at-Large for Bulgaria, Reporting from Bulgaria

The recent heat wave that distorted daily life for many people around the globe didn’t fail to reach Bulgaria as well. The lucky ones, however, had already traveled to the seaside, where the locals usually prefer to spend the scorching summers. For them, the past two weeks at the shores of the Black Sea turned out to be not only a relief but also an opportunity to catch up on some reading, as the city of Varna hosted the much anticipated thirteenth edition of The Book Alley festival, organized by the Bulgarian Book Association. The event welcomed more than sixty publishers who, in addition to offering a wide selection of titles, engaged the public in a few charming initiatives. READ MORE…

Weekly Updates from the Front Lines of World Literature

The latest literary news from Hong Kong, Argentina, and Iran!

Whilst coronavirus remains a concern for countries around the world, our weekly dispatches are a testament that world literature continues to thrive, with our writers reporting on new literary journal initiatives, publishing fairs, audio books, and newly released novels. In Hong Kong, writers are advocating Cantonese literature and boldly responding to the ongoing protests by launching two new literary journals, Resonate and Hong Kong Protesting. Lovers of Argentine literature will be excited by the release of English audio books from the Centro Cultural Kirchner, featuring authors such as César Aira and Hebe Uhart, and available for free. In Iran, the literary community mourns the passing of prominent linguistic scholar Badr al-Zaman Qarib but has also celebrated the new release by the renowned novelist and Man Asian Literary Prize nominee Mahmoud Dowlatabadi. Read on to find out more! 

Jacqueline Leung, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong

Two weeks ago, University of Edinburgh student Andrew Yu tweeted that one of the journal reviewers of his academic paper claimed that the name of Hong Kong is inappropriately “foreign” and needs to be amended to appear alongside its Chinese equivalent (香港) and its Mandarin romanization (Xianggang). Despite its roots in British colonialism, “Hong Kong” has been used for at least 180 years and is a closer romanization of the city’s name in Cantonese, its local language. What the reviewer proposed is unnatural, but it is also reflective of the city’s larger struggles as it tries to maintain its own identity amid political pressure and the sweeping national security law.

There have been recent initiatives to better protect Hong Kong’s unique culture and literature. Launched in June, Resonate is the world’s first literary journal written completely in Cantonese, which is seen mainly as a spoken language and is rarely written out in formal or literary contexts. Featuring fiction and criticism, the journal also publishes articles about the language itself, debunking myths long believed by its speakers—like the idea that Cantonese was spoken during the Tang dynasty. In fact, it is a modern variety of Middle Chinese, used from the Northern and Southern dynasties to the Song dynasty (roughly, from around A.D. 600  to A.D. 1200). Mandarin and Shanghainese also developed from Middle Chinese.

Cha, Hong Kong’s English-language literary journal, has also initiated a new project amassing writing about the Hong Kong protests, recently stifled by mass arrests of pro-democracy figures and the disqualification of lawmakers and election hopefuls. Hong Kong Protesting is a growing collection of original and translated poetry, essays, criticism, and art from various contributors. In particular, several translations of works by Hong Kong poets are available, including poems by Cao Shuying (trans. Andrea Lingenfelter), Derek Chung (trans. Tammy Lai-Ming Ho), Liu Waitong (trans. Lucas Klein), and Jacky Yuen (trans. Nicky Admussen). Many of the works evoke the start of the movement last summer when two million people marched peacefully, and when violating incidents, such as the attacks on journalists and citizens, became more frequent, altering the city once and for all. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

A trip around the literary world, from USA to Latin America to the Czech Republic.

The weekend is upon us—here’s a detailed look at the week that was by our editors-at-large. In the United States, Madeline Jones reports directly from the trenches of the Book Expo in New York City. A gathering of publishers, booksellers, agents, librarians, and authors, the event is the largest of its kind in North America. We also have Sarah Moses filling us in with tidings from Colombia and Argentina, and updates on the Bogotá39, a group of thirty-nine Latin American writers considered to be the finest of their generation. Finally, Julia Sherwood brings us some hot off the press literary news from the Czech Republic. Settle in and get reading.

Madeline Jones, Editor-at-Large, reports from the United States:

Last week in New York City, Book Expo (formerly Book Expo America) set up shop at the famously-disliked Javits Center on western edge of Midtown Manhattan. Publishers, literary agencies, scouts, booksellers, and readers gathered for discussions about the future of publishing, meetings about foreign rights deals, publicity and media “speed-dating” sessions, and more. Authors and editors spoke about their latest books for audiences of industry insiders, and lines trailed from various publisher booths for galley signings.

Though the floor was noticeably quieter than previous years, and certainly nothing compared to the busy hub of foreign rights negotiations that the London and Frankfurt book fairs are, Asymptote readers will be pleased to hear that multiple panel discussions and presentations were dedicated to foreign publishers, the viability of selling translations in the U.S., and indie books (which more often tend to be translations than major trade publishers’ books). READ MORE…