Posts filed under 'French translation'

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

June 18, 2021  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Darren Huang and Suhasini Patni

Hear about some of the most recent literary news from Taiwan and India!

This week, find out from our editors-at-large what has been happening around the literary world. Taiwanese literature appears in French translation, introducing a diverse swathe of writers across Taiwan’s linguistic backgrounds to French readers. India continues to reel from the impact of the pandemic, as the literary community remembers the writers they’ve lost, and many organizations stepping up to advocate for pandemic relief work. Read on to learn more.

Darren Huang, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Taiwan 

In February, the French publishing company L’Asiatheque released Formosana: Stories of Democracy in Taiwan, a collection of nine short stories by contemporary Taiwanese writers. L’Asisatheque is focused on making available books in translation from Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, South America, and Africa to French readers. In 2015, the company launched a “Taiwan Fiction” series, led by editor Gwennaël Gaffric, who is also a Chinese translator and professor in China Studies at the University of Lyon. The series seeks to amplify Taiwanese literature with themes of environmentalism, cultural identity, Taiwanese dialects, gender, postcolonialism, and the impacts of globalization. The series has published a number of modern classics of Taiwanese literature in French including A City of Sadness by Chu Tien-wen and Wu Nien-jen, The Membranes by past contributor Chi Ta-wei (recently reviewed in our blog), and multiple works by Wu Ming-yi, including The Man With the Compound Eyes and his novella, The Magician on the Catwalk.

In Formosana, the writers grapple with turbulent periods in Taiwanese history, including that of Japanese colonialism, the White Terror, martial law, and democratization. The stories also contend with social issues, such as nativist movements, LGBT rights, and environmentalism. In a recent interview, Gaffric discussed his choice of centering the collection on the theme of Taiwanese democracy. He believes that though there is increasing coverage of Taiwan in the French press, most French people do not understand its historical and cultural intricacies. He states: “We attempt to allow people to understand the fate of Taiwan from the past to the future, through various types of literary works which provide different channels and voices.” For his next book, Gaffric plans to publish the works of indigenous writer, Syaman Rapongan, to introduce indigenous writing to French readers.

On May 29, Taiwanese literature was also highlighted in France when Chi Ta-wei was invited to join the ninth annual “Nuit de la literature,” organized by the Forum of Foreign Cultural Institutes in Paris (FICEP). A reading of Chi’s “Pearls,” one of the stories from his eponymous science-fiction collection, was conducted in both English and Chinese at the virtual event with the author and Gaffric. READ MORE…

Au Diable Vauvert: the French publishing house championing translation

April 6, 2020  |  in Essays  |  by Alexander Dickow

Au Diable Vauvert ought to be a model for all American publishers of speculative fiction . . .

Au Diable Vauvert is a French publishing house, founded in 2000 in the Camargue in the South of France. Its mission has always been to widen the concept of literary genre and to champion the translation of emerging voices in pop culture. In this essay, Alexander Dickow introduces us to Au Diable Vauvert’s impressive history of translations, as well as discussing his own experience of their writers-in-residency programme. 

There I was, translating the inchoate into sentences amongst the black bulls and white horses of the Petite Camargue. Here I was, watching the mosquitos drink my hands dry, admiring the rows of cypress trees and bent grapevines. And then came coronavirus, and I had to find some way back to Blacksburg, Virginia, through the crowded train stations and the petri-dish airports.

But as Magritte wrote (more or less), ceci n’est pas un journal de confinement: no need to dread a deluge of pandemic-inspired prattle (there’s only a trickle of that here), for I intend instead to pay homage to an intrepid publisher, Au Diable Vauvert. The name comes from the identical expression, which in French means something close to “in the middle of nowhere.” Indeed, this house is located in La Laune, a mere cluster of houses ten minutes beyond the town of Vauvert, between Arles and Nîmes. It’s a strange location for a publishing house: a mostly rural and right-wing community where the publishing house’s founder Marion Mazauric’s left-wing intellectual background stands out. But Marion stands out anywhere: she’s a force of nature, which brought her the moniker “The Red Tigress” as a student in the 1970s. READ MORE…

In This Together: Writers From Around the World Respond to the COVID-19 Outbreak

April 4, 2020  |  in In This Together, Translations  |  by Sarah Moore

Defeating lockdown with what makes us human. The shared word—Ariadne's thread that allowed Theseus to find his way.

As COVID-19 continues to leave devastation in its wake, one is reminded of the importance of bearing witness. As Paul Celan said: “It, the language, remained, not lost, yes, in spite of everything.” In our new Saturday column, In This Together, we at Asymptote are gathering a series of texts from writers around the world—poetry, journals, essays, and all the other tools language gives us to see beyond the surface of things. Today, in our inaugural post, we present diary entries from French theatre director Wajdi Mouawad, translated by assistant blog editor Sarah Moore. Below, Moore gives us an introduction and context to Mouawad’s life and work:

Wajdi Mouawad has been the director of La Colline theatre in Paris since 2016. One of five national theatres in France, La Colline is renowned for its mission to stage contemporary works. Since taking up this role, Mouawad has programmed work by writers such as Édouard Louis, Vincent Macaigne, Elfriede Jelinek, and Angélica Liddell. Last month, I went to see Anne-Marie la Beauté (Anne-Marie the Beauty), a nostalgic, bittersweet monologue written by Yasmina Reza, one of France’s most successful contemporary playwrights. The following week, Friday March 13, I had tickets to see the new play by Peter Handke, Les Innocents, Moi, et l’Inconnue au bord de la route départementale (The Innocents, I, and the Stranger on the side of the departmental road). Handke, winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature, is a contentious figure, and I was curious to see what I’d make of this new text. However, hours before the performance was due to start, the French government limited gatherings to fewer than one hundred people in an attempt to curb the spread of coronavirus. And since March 17, the country has been on a strict lockdown. Now, beside each listing for Reza and Handke’s plays reads “—annulé.” Mouawad, like everyone else, is on lockdown, with life on pause. How does a playwright and director respond when his theatre must close its doors to the public? Since the first day of this lockdown, Mouawad has been keeping an audio diary, published on the website of La Colline. Through his diary, Mouawad reflects on this unprecedented situation, on how he can continue to write and engage with communities, and as he says, “how to turn the time of lockdown into a time that’s alive.”

Excerpts from “Lockdown Diary — Day One”

by Wajdi Mouawad

Washing them twice an hour and for thirty seconds each time. I’ve never had such clean hands as during these days of solitude. And yet, despite the cleanliness of my hands, I must be responsible for something. Lady Macbeth, unwittingly. But then, what is this stain which won’t go and which I can’t stop scrubbing? What crime have I committed? What king have I slain? Unless, reflecting my own era, I’m nothing more than one of the thousands of Pontius Pilates (another character obsessed by the cleanliness of their ten fingers,) who is wondering what all this has to do with them. In this case, what is it about washing my hands that today carries the risk of being put to death? Which Christ am I sending to his crucifixion? What is sublime and who dies? What departs? What spirit of the forest is deserting the world? What must I, from now on, mourn? Carefreeness. It’s been two weeks since I can say I’ve been feeling carefree: climate, fire, violence against women, liberalism. If the world I’m giving up through lockdown was that one, why wish this lockdown to end as quickly as possible? To return to what kind of world? Between a world that crushes me, and one that turns me today into a statue, how to prevent a state of shock, without a reply to this question: what to do with this lockdown? I open my eyes this morning after wandering all night long in the bois de Vincennes. What is happening to us? On this first day of lockdown, taking stock of the situation is impossible. It’s like writing yourself in reverse. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m feeling. I don’t know where the measure of everything is. I don’t know if my lucidity is panic. In the evening, I go to bed and tell myself that without even knowing, I perhaps won’t see summer. So many of us won’t see it. Overwhelming and collective sorrow. I can’t reassure myself with the idea, increasingly fragile, that this only affects the elderly. And even if that were true, how can the death of others be reassuring? And anyway, how could we live in a world without the elderly if all the elderly were to disappear? For an hour, I’m overcome by unease and everything comes back to me. A civil war won’t stop the epidemic and misfortune doesn’t wait its turn. The gods don’t exist. No logic, other than nature and her disruption. Confused thoughts. Feelings in disarray. Multiple sensations. Like so many pieces of a puzzle, of no precise image except a fog, none of which fit perfectly together. Fear, sadness, anxiety, and memories. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

June 21, 2019  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Julia Sherwood, Lou Sarabadzic, Poupeh Missaghi, and Shelly Bhoil

Get close up and personal with global literary happenings.

Let language be free! This week, our editors are reporting on a myriad of literary news including the exclusion of Persian/Farsi language services on Amazon Kindle, the vibrant and extensive poetry market in Paris, a Czech book fair with an incredibly diverse setlist, and a poetry festival in São Paolo that thrills in originality. At the root of all these geographically disparate events is one common cause: that literature be accessible, inclusive, and for the greater good. 

Poupeh Missaghi, Editor-at-Large, reporting from New York City

Iranians have faced many ups and downs over the years in their access to international culture and information services, directly or indirectly as a result of sanctions; these have included limitations for publishers wanting to secure copyrights, membership services for journals or websites, access to phone applications, and even postal services for the delivery of goods, including books.

In a recent event, according to Radio Farda, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing stopped providing Persian/Farsi language services for direct publishing in November 2018. (You can find a list of supported languages here.) This affects many Iranian and Afghan writers and readers who have used the services as a means to publish and access literature free of censorship. Many speculate that this, while Arabic language services are still available, is due to Amazon wanting to avoid any legal penalties related to the latest rounds of severe sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.S.

READ MORE…