Posts filed under 'Hurricane Maria'

Section Editors’ Highlights: Winter 2020

January 27, 2020  |  in News  |  by Caridad Svich, Eva Heisler, Lee Yew Leong, Sam Carter, and Varun Nayar

Our Section Editors pick their favorites from the Winter 2020 issue!

We thought of the Winter 2020 issue as a fantastic salad, surprising and delightful in its compact variety. We’re willing to concede, however, that it is a large salad; the challenges it presents might be more approachable if they’re coming from a buffet. With so many delights and delectables on offer, where does one begin? Perhaps, we humbly suggest, with these selections from our section editors, which include a Federico García Lorca play and an Eduardo Lalo essay.

From Lee Yew Leong, Fiction, Poetry, and Kurdish Feature Editor:

Brought into English by Caitlin O’Neil (a former team member, I’m thrilled to say), Corinne Hoex’s sensuous—and sensational—Gentlemen Callers is full of exquisite treats, rivaling Belgian compatriot Amélie Nothomb’s wit, humor, and imagination. Although Asymptote makes it its mission to move beyond world literature’s Eurocentric focus, it’s gems like this that remind me that there’s still much to discover from smaller, less heard-from countries within Europe. I would consider it scandalous if Hoex’s fiction is still unknown in the world literature canon ten years down the road. From the Poetry section, Gnaomi Siemens accompanies her sexy, updated take of Ephemeris (horoscopes from the 16th century) with a thought-provoking note: “Horoscopes (hora / time, skopos / observation) are ephemeral. Translation is an observation of time and a holding up of the writings and ideas of one time to observe them in a new temporal context.” Pair with Joey Schwartzman’s 21st-century renderings of T’ang dynasty poet Bai Juyi. Whip-smart and bittersweet, these timeless poems about transience will stay with you for at least a little while.

From Sam Carter, Criticism Section Editor:

This issue’s Criticism section introduces us to two poetry collections that embody the Asymptote mission by refusing to be contained by borders, whether linguistic or geographic. Our very own Lou Sarabadzic takes us through the important work done by Poetry of the Holocaust: An Anthology, which contains poems from ninety-three writers and nineteen languages in order to provide a comprehensive portrait of this terrible atrocity. And Emma Gomis reviews Time, Etel Adnan’s latest exploration of temporality and poetic form that arose from a series of postcards exchanged with the Tunisian artist Khaled Najar. READ MORE…

Section Editors’ Highlights: Fall 2019

October 28, 2019  |  in News  |  by Ah-reum Han, Caridad Svich, Ellen Jones, Henry Ace Knight, Lee Yew Leong, Varun Nayar, and Victoria Livingstone

Our Section Editors pick their favorite pieces from the Fall 2019 issue!

Eleven days after its launch, Asymptote’s Fall 2019 issue continues to capture the zeitgeist. Many of its pieces, drawn from a record thirty-six countries, simmer with polyvocal discontent at the modern world, taking aim squarely at its seamy underbelly: the ravages of environmental degradation, colonial resource extraction, and media sensationalism of violence, in particular. If you’re still looking for a way in, perhaps our Section Editors can be of some assistance. Their highlights from the edition follow:

From Lee Yew Leong, Fiction, Poetry, and Microfiction Special Feature Editor:

Via frequent contributors Julia and Peter Sherwood, an excerpt from Czech writer and dramaturg Radka Denemarková’s latest Magnesia Litera Prize-winning novel, Hours of Lead, brings us into the bowels of a Chinese prison, bearing witness to a dissident girl’s defiance of state repression and censorship. Inspired by Václav Havel, the protagonist’s struggle is entirely private and self-motivated, untethered from any broader democratic collective or underground movement. Her guards are driven mad by her equanimity and individuality in the face of savage interrogation: “Even her diffident politeness is regarded as provocative. As is her decency. Restraint. Self-control. Humility. . . The guards find her very existence provocative.” Renounced by her parents and rendered persona non grata, “a one-person ghetto,” by the state, her isolation is both liberating and the ultimate gesture of self-sacrifice.

Meanwhile, poet Fabián Severo—the only Uruguayan writing in Portunhol, the language of the Uruguayan frontier with Brazil—revels in an act of presence just as radical and defiant of the mainstream, resisting the state’s attempted erasure of his language. Laura Cesarco Eglin and Jesse Lee Kercheval’s translation sings: “This language of mine sticks out its tongue at the dictionary/ dances a cumbia on top of the maps / and from the school tunic and bow tie / makes a kite / that flies / loose and free through the sky.” Don’t overlook the luminous poems of prolific French and Martinican Creole writer Monchoachi, whom Derek Walcott has credited for “completely renewing our vision of the Creole language.” “The Caribbean could be considered a workshop for the modern world,” he conveys in Eric Fishman’s English translation, “with its deportations, its exterminations, and also its ‘wildly multiple’ side, its ‘ubiquity of voices and sounds.’” READ MORE…