Posts filed under 'new in translation'

Johannes Anyuru’s Dystopian Swedish Future: A Review of They Will Drown in Their Mothers’ Tears

Anyuru doesn’t shy away from complicated issues—instead, he utilizes a complex story structure to take us right to the core of them.

They Will Drown in Their Mothers’ Tears by Johannes Anyuru, translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel, Two Lines Press, 2019

As I’m reading the English translation of Johanne’s Anyuru’s They Will Drown in Their Mothers’ Tears at the end of 2019, a news report catches my attention. The Sweden Democrats, a right-wing populist anti-immigration party with increasing support since entering the Swedish parliament in 2010, has proposed limiting the access to Swedish public libraries. Non-citizens in Sweden would lose their right to borrow books or use other library services. I’m talking about a proposed bill in the real Sweden, in the real now.

Terrorist attacks have become a familiarity in western European cities over the past years, and that’s starting to be reflected in the fiction that’s published. Anyuru’s latest novel starts with a bomb attack at a comic book store in Gothenburg. While this is fiction, there are clear references to both the Parisian publication Charlie Hebdo and the controversial Swedish artist Lars Vilks.

It was five years ago, in January 2015, that the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo was attacked by terrorists. Twelve columnists, editors, cartoonists, and other workers in the building were killed and eleven more were injured. You might remember the Je suis Charlie manifestations that followed across multiple countries. Probably less known around the world is conceptual artist Lars Vilks, a survivor of several targeted attacks, including the February 2015 attack in Copenhagen that killed one person. Lars Vilks has lived under death threats since 2007 because of his depictions of the prophet Muhammad. READ MORE…

What’s New in Translation: January 2020

A darkly comical Cuban fiction, the collected texts of an impassioned French thinker, and an Israeli story of radical empathy.

We’re starting up 2020 with what we do best: bringing you a selection of brilliant titles that have most recently landed in world literature. Our picks this month span the radical, the intimate, and the dark, with the stunning cross-section of twentieth-century Cuban society, a collection of essays by the notorious Jean Genet, and an Israeli tale of survival and struggle told in a great feat of imagination. Go ahead and take advantage of that new-year urgency to fulfill your resolution to read more, and start here.

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The Black Cathedral by Marcial Gala, translated from the Spanish by Anna Kushner, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020

Review by Leah Scott, Social Media Manager

A dark mosaic of interwoven narratives, The Black Cathedral by Marcial Gala lures the reader straight into the complicated dramas of Cienfuegos, a small Cuban town riddled with poverty and conflict. The novel features a broad cast of idiosyncratic characters, whose histories we come to understand not only through their own unique voices, but by the tales told by others; Cienfuego’s harrowing history emerges through decades of local gossip, placing the reader right at the center of the town’s most turbid rumors and confessions—stories that ultimately culminate in a vicious and bitter end.  READ MORE…

What’s New in Translation: December 2019

Our selected works of translation this month touch on the eternal themes of narrative, identity, and the poet's voice.

It has been a wonderful year of covering, dear reader, the most fascinating translated works of world literature. Today, we are back with three more varied and exceptional books. Below, find reviews of a discursive and genre-bending Korean work, a powerful Uzbek novel that traverses existential questions of migration and hybridity, and the intimately potent lines of a young Argentine poetess. 

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Seven Samurai Swept Away in a River by Jung Young Moon, translated from the Korean by Yewon Jung, Deep Vellum Publishing, 2019

Review by Jacqueline Leung, Editor-at-Large for Hong Kong

To Jung Young Moon, the author of Seven Samurai Swept Away in a River, meaninglessness is a more accurate portrayal of reality than contrived narratives. Continuing the fascination of Vaseline Buddha, one of his earlier novels which delves into the mind of an insomniac writer, Moon experiments with how the novel as a genre may go beyond the typical constituents of character, plot, and structure, and whether or not readers are able to find enjoyment in navigating largely banal thoughts and experiences. 

Set in Texas, where Moon did a residency in 2017 (specifically, in Corsicana, which he refers to as “C, a small town near Dallas”), Seven Samurai culminated from his desire to write about the state. But Moon does not know much about Texas, nor does he pretend to do so. Meandering through a list of stereotypes, from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to cowboys to the disdain for adding beans to chilli, Moon does not so much feature Texas as a place of interest, but rather as a springboard for his endless ruminations that find beginnings in almost anything, but that ultimately lead nowhere. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

The latest news from Brazil, Central America, and Sweden!

This week our writers report on a stage adaption of Clarice Lispector in New York, new publications in Guatemala and El Salvador, and the Nobel Prize for Literature ceremony in Sweden. Read on to find out more!

Daniel Persia, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Brazil

December has already been a notable month for Brazilian literature across the globe, with Clarice Lispector’s Near to the Wild Heart making its onstage (off-off-Broadway) debut in New York City. Lispector’s first novel takes on a stream-of-consciousness narration as it traces the life of its protagonist, Joana, from her middle-class childhood through an unhappy marriage—never afraid to delve into her deepest, innermost thoughts. Under the direction of Ildiko Nemeth at The New Stage Theatre Company, the stage adaptation places the brilliant language of Alison Entrekin’s 2012 translation in the hands of a highly memorable cast, supported by video projections and costume designs that are at once subtle and revealing. BroadwayWorld critic Derek McCracken praises the show’s “poetic, organic and otherworldly feel . . . [it] conjures up the mood and elements of a love story that got ghosted.” If you find yourself in New York, Near to the Wild Heart will be playing at the New Stage Performance Space until January 18, 2020—don’t miss out!

While Entrekin’s words have been making their way onto the mainstage, the well-known Australian translator has been busy sharing her latest endeavor: a new English-language translation of the classic, Grande Sertão: Veredas. Entrekin participated in the 11th International Connections Itaú Cultural event, held from December 3-4, 2019 in São Paulo, Brazil, where she delivered the last installment of a three-part translation workshop. Dozens of other writers, academics and critics—including American translator Flora Thomson-DeVeaux, Japanese translator Chika Takeda, and French translator and editor Paula Anacaona—engaged in dialogue on the role of Brazilian literature and cinema around the globe. Also among the topics discussed was the state of Brazilian and Portuguese studies at higher education institutions, as many universities shift departmental focus from national to transnational literatures. Each of the panels was recorded, and the complete series can be accessed for free online, courtesy of Itaú Cultural. READ MORE…

What’s New in Translation: November 2019

November’s best new translations, chosen by the Asymptote staff.

November brings plenty of exciting new translations and our writers have chosen four varied, yet equally enriching and timely works: Bohumil Hrabal’s memoir that is at once a detailed study of humans’ relationship with cats and an exploration of dealing with mounting pressures and stress; a debut collection of Chilean short stories which explores social and economic difficulties and sheds light on some of the causes behind Chile’s recent social unrest; Hiromi Kawakami’s follow-up novella to the international bestseller, Strange Weather in Tokyo; and a novel set on the Chagos Archipelago which recounts the expulsion of Chagossians from the island of Diego Garcia and examines cultural identity and exile. Read on to find out more!

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All My Cats by Bohumil Hrabal, translated from the Czech by Paul Wilson, New Directions, 2019

Review by Katarzyna Bartoszyńska, Educational Arm Assistant

Bohumil Hrabal’s All My Cats is not for the faint of heart. Though fans of the author will recognize and appreciate the quirky humor and lyrical melancholy, one must also be prepared to take on the harsher aspects of the story, and I suspect that the uninitiated may find the descriptions of cats being murdered a bit much to take. The short memoir documents the author’s relationship to the feral cats living in his country cottage in Kersko, and his anguished labors to brutally limit their number. It is a lovely homage, and a richly evocative account of the pleasures of feline companionship, with lush descriptions of their delicate paws and velvety noses. We become acquainted with each individual kitty and their distinctive markings, habits, and personalities, but these rhapsodic stories are punctuated by episodes of grim slaughter that are depressingly specific—a morose account of an awful deed. And so, gradually, horrifyingly, this becomes a book about guilt and how it shapes one’s worldview, producing a strange reckoning of crime and punishment that reads retribution in the random alignments of events.

Witnessing Hrabal shuttling back and forth between his life in Prague and Kersko, we begin to notice that his concerns about his cats are combined with a steadily accumulating sense of anxiety and torment about his work, neighbors, and life. “What are we going to do with all those cats?” his wife asks, in an echoing refrain, as new litters of kittens, inexorably, arrive. The book is about the cats, but we start to realize that it is also not about the cats, not really, but rather, about how Hrabal struggles to manage the various stresses of his life more generally as he gains success and recognition as a writer. Haunted by his guilt over the murdered creatures, he surveys the world around him, reflecting on the relationship between art and suffering, and increasingly begins to feel that he is a plaything of fate, doomed to unhappiness, with no choice but surrender. READ MORE…

What’s New in Translation: October 2019

October's new translations, selected by the Asymptote staff to shed light on the best recent offerings of world literature.

A new month brings an abundance of fresh translations, and our writers have chosen three of the most engaging, important works: a Japanese novella recounting the monotony of modern working life as the three narrators begin employment in a factory, the memoir of a Russian political prisoner and filmmaker, as well as the first comprehensive English translation of Giorgio de Chirico’s Italian poems. Read on to find out more!

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The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada, translated from the Japanese by David Boyd, New Directions, 2019

Review by Andreea Scridon, Assistant Editor

Drawn from the author’s own experience as a temporary worker in Japan, The Factory strikes one as being a laconic metaphor for the psychologically brutalizing nature of the modern workplace. There is more than meets the eye in this seemingly mundane narrative of three characters who find work at a huge factory (reticent Yoshiko as a shredder, dissatisfied Ushiyama as a proofreader, and disoriented Furufue as a researcher), as they become increasingly absorbed and eventually almost consumed by its all-encompassing and panoptic nature. Coincidentally wandering into a job for the city’s biggest industry, or finding themselves driven there—against their instincts—by necessity, the three alternating narrators chronicle the various aspects of their working experience and the deeply bizarre undertones that lie beneath the banal surface. READ MORE…

What’s New in Translation: September 2019

Looking for what to read next? Our staff share their latest discoveries in new translations.

It is another month bringing us various gifts in the form of translated literatures, and our editors have selected the finest. Read below to find reviews of a short story collection detailing the various and complex natures of India, a haunting and poignant Swedish novel, unsettling tales from Israel, and a poignantly feminist work from Palestine.

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A Kitchen in the Corner of the House by Ambai (C.S. Lakshmi), translated from the Tamil by Lakshmi Holmström, Archipelago Books, 2019

Review by Ben Dreith, Assistant Editor

C.S. Lakshmi, who writes in English and Tamil under the pseudonym Ambai, is a scion of post-revolutionary Indian feminism and women’s studies researcher who was raised and educated in Mumbai, Bangalore, and New Delhi. Of her work, the most recent to appear in English is A Kitchen in the Corner of the House, a mellifluous and courageous work translated by Lakshmi Holström, a dedicated scholar who passed away in 2016. She will be missed, and her efforts, evident in the enduring legacy and themes of A Kitchen in the Corner of the House, may inform the concerns of Indian feminism in the English-speaking world for generations.

The book is a collection of stories, told from multiple voices and perspectives, which centers on the travails and aspirations of women across a broad socio-economic and linguistic spectrum. The voices in A Kitchen in the Corner of the House reflect the varied cultural expectations and norms that simultaneously thrive and jostle for distinction within the Indian nation, which can be too easily regarded as a seamless whole by outside observers. What unites the characters in the stories, though, is a keen sense of subjective solidarity amongst women who are draped in desperation—and hope.

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What’s New in Translation: August 2019

Noirs, voyeurs, and sensuality abound in this week's reviews of the newest in translated literature.

This week’s reviews of the newest and most compelling translated literature include the latest work by Poland’s preeminent writer, Olga Tokarczuk, a fascinating portrayal of manic self-interrogation and class by Stéphane Larue, and a darkly dionysian tale of the female gaze by the award-winning Nina Leger. Our editors burrow into the philosophy, language, and atmosphere of these three novels to give you some extra additions to your reading list.

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Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Riverhead Books, 2019

Review by Andreea Scridon, Assistant Editor

Janina Duszejko is the kind of woman that many would call “eccentric”: she’s in her mid-sixties, often bordering on paranoia, and she’s firmly convinced by astrology, absolute vegetarianism, and William Blake. In rural Poland, Janina—as she hates to be called—lives peacefully and in relative solitude as a guardian for the summer cabins surrounding her home. However, she quickly comes into conflict with the insensitive and barbarous hunters who reign over the area. The death of a neighbor escalates such tension, creating a series of mysterious murders that Janina will be privy to, and which will culminate in an unexpected twist.

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What’s New in Translation: July 2019

Four reviews of translations you won't want to miss this month!

From translations by heavyweights like Ann Goldstein and Jennifer Croft to novels by writers appearing for the first time in English, July brings a host of exciting new books in translation. Read on for coming-of-age stories set in Italy and Poland, a drama in rural Argentina, and the tale of a young man and his pet lizard in Japan. 

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A Girl Returned by Donatella Di Pietrantonio, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein, Europa Editions, 2019

Review by Lindsay Semel, Assistant Editor

In A Girl Returned, Donatella Di Pietrantonio’s award-winning novel, a nameless young woman retrospectively narrates the defining event of her adolescence—the year when the only family she has ever known returns her to her birth family. From the title, the reader can already sense the protagonist’s conundrum. A passive object of the act of being returned, her passivity in her own uprooting threatens to define her identity. Ann Goldstein’s searing translation from the Italian inspires the reader both to accompany the narrator as she wades through the tender memories of that time and to reflect on her or his own family relationships through a new lens.

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What’s New in Translation: June 2019

The best new reads from across the world, selected and reviewed by members of the Asymptote team.

Not sure what to read this summer? Our team has you covered with reviews of this month’s most anticipated literature in translation, including a Brazilian bestseller set in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, an Egyptian writer’s take on life in the USSR, and an entertaining novel from a beloved Bengali author.

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The Sun on My Head by Geovani Martins, translated from the Portuguese by Julia Sanches, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019

Reviewed by Daniel Persia, Editor-at-Large for Brazil

Look out for blowtorches and the BOPE in Geovani Martins’s debut, The Sun on My Head, a collection of thirteen short stories that bring us into the heart of twenty-first century life in Rio’s favelas. Tensions run high between the police, drug slingers and traffickers, and the men, women, and children trying to live their everyday lives. Martins shows us that the language of the favelas is just as legitimate as the language of the academy, keeping “literature” true to everyday form. Julia Sanches preserves this legitimacy in English, delivering a carefully crafted translation filled with colloquialisms, slang, and Portuguese. The result is “some real trifling shit”—a wild ride that exposes us to the complexities of life in the periphery and the complexities of translating that life from one language into another.

Published in Brazil just last year, 2018, O sol na cabeça became an instant bestseller—a literary sensation that brought the voice of twenty-six-year-old Martins into the spotlight. Martins draws on his experiences of living in a favela to paint a modern-day picture of an ever-evolving Rio—particularly around the time of two major international events: the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. In “Spiral,” we see how racial and class profiling begins at a young age, and how irrational assumptions are perpetuated through inherited distrust. Those who live in the favelas are feared by the private school kids, the teenagers taking tennis lessons and the people waiting, anxiously, at the bus stop. “I remembered how that same old woman who’d trembled with fear before I’d given her reason to certainly hadn’t given any thought to how I probably also had a grandma, a mother, family, friends,” the narrator reveals, in a statement that demonstrates one of the overarching premises of the collection: to turn these stories on their head, to legitimize the experiences of those who face prejudice by representing them as whole human beings. The old lady walking on the street, clutching her bag, eyes turned sideways, isn’t the one telling the story anymore…

Martins takes us in and out of the favelas, introducing us to characters who are often in the heat of action (or one step away). In “Russian Roulette,” a young Paulo traces his dad’s gun down his body, into his pants, “savoring the hot-and-cold sensation”—a sign of both his innocence and a complicated relationship with power. In “The Case of the Butterfly,” a young boy fails to save a butterfly as it flitters into the kitchen and falls into a pool of leftover oil on the stove. The narrator in “TGIF”, fed up with collecting tennis balls for rich kids day after day, heads to Jacarezinho to get his fix, only to be robbed by a crooked cop. Each recollection is more of a vignette than a full-fledged story, where image (rather than plot) holds the metaphor. Though these images are strikingly clear, they (intentionally) leave us with minimal resolution—with an uncertainty as to how these characters endure, or overcome, the situations that they do.

The favela, the morro, the barraco: these are complex, distinctly Brazilian, places. Readers who are familiar with them will have an easier time navigating Martins’s text, while those who aren’t might find themselves a bit lost on “the hill”—particularly amidst the vernacular of stories like “Lil Spin,” “The Tale of Parakeet and Ape,” and “The Crossing,” where words are exchanged as quick as drugs. In her latest essay, Sanches points out that Martins seems to choose “to not explain; to let certain readers in and keep others out; there’s something for everyone here, but more for some than for others.” This is a book that lives on the streets, among the people of Rio’s favelas. And life there doesn’t slow down just because we might be unfamiliar with it.

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Ice by Sonallah Ibrahim, translated from the Arabic by Margaret Litvin, Seagull Books, 2019

Review by Sam Carter, Senior Editor

Between 1971 and 1973, the Egyptian novelist Sonallah Ibrahim studied at the All-Soviet Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. Yet there he spent less time learning the craft of filmmaking than engaging with cinema as spectator, and, by the time he returned to Egypt in 1974, he had confirmed that his preferred medium was the written word rather than the silver screen. That meant a return to a form in which he was already famous. 1966’s That Smell, which had been banned even before its printed copies could be distributed, was a loosely autobiographical account of a political prisoner after his release yet still under house arrest in Cairo. It is now widely regarded as one of the most significant texts written in Arabic in the second half of the twentieth century.

Margaret Litvin’s deft translation of Ice, which originally appeared in 2011 after being written the year before, sharply observes the Soviet situation in roughly the same period as Ibrahim’s stay there. But rather than a writer interested in potentially becoming a filmmaker, the novel features a scholar pursuing further study in history. Ibrahim’s style, though, resembles nothing so much as that of slow cinema as it stitches together an array of episodes that never yield to the exigencies of a plot and instead offer us the subtle intricacies of life in the USSR.

The result is a compelling depiction of the listlessness that often besets student life. Shukri, the historian, spends some of his time sitting down at a typewriter without producing many pages or sifting through an extensive set of Egyptian newspapers given to him by a journalist and creating a collection of cuttings whose ultimate purpose is unclear even to him. Yet most of this novel suffused with vodka and frequently frustrated sexual desires revolves around the social space of the obshchezhitie or dormitory, where he lives with a rotating cast of roommates that includes Hans, a German student who often attracts the interest of the women Shukri lusts after. These young people have come to Moscow from many parts of the world unsure of what exactly awaited them, and many of them seem to leave with an even less clear idea of what the future will hold after their Soviet sojourns.

Although it is a novel about indecision—about the inability to figure out both what one is doing right now and will then do next—Ice decisively deploys what Litvin calls a “flat style” and does so to great effect. There is something intensely absorbing about the abrupt prose that traces the numbing experience Shukri has as he finds only convolution and irresolution in what had promised to be a place of revolution.

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Harbart by Nabarun Bhattacharya, translated from the Bengali by Sunandini Banerjee, New Directions Press, 2019

Review by Lindsay Semel, Assistant Editor

By the time he died in 2014, Nabarun Bhattacharya, the author of Harbart, had a Bengali cult following. Through translator Sunandini Banerjee’s mediation, his pool of post-mortem admirers is sure to expand throughout the anglophone world.

Harbart, born into a wealthy family, but orphaned as a young boy and abandoned to the care of his father’s unloving relatives, grew up reading books about the occult. One day, he has a dream in which his Naxalite revolutionary cousin Binu, who’d been shot by the police, reveals the location of a diary hidden behind a picture of Kali in his aunt’s prayer room. He directly sets up a lucrative business; “Conversations with the Dead. Prop: Harbart Sarkar,” says the sign over his door. “Harbart could sense it. He would have to charge-barrage now. Binu had had his time. It was Harbart’s time now. He would have to produce pandemonium—rip apart everything, turn everything upside down until the entire universe reeled in the dance of devastation.” He’s a fake, but also not. True, he lies to his customers. But another truth it that the dead stand on the sidelines of the novel, coexistent with the living, squabbling and commentating. Harbart is a haunted man, and the telling of his own death bookends the rest of the narrative. The reader has the impression that he’s not as much a fraud as a victim-participant in the forward march of capitalism and of the impetus to assign significance to the pointlessness and chaos of material existence.

We meet Harbart, already dead, through the eyes of a lizard. He’s “so still that the lizard crawled across his chest and then down his arm to his left hand, only to find it immersed in a bucket of blood-smelling cold water.” We proceed to learn about him by having a look around his room with him dead in the middle of it. This opening scene is characteristic of the rest of the novel. The perspective is askance, never straight on, and driven by happenstance—a narrative style that playfully destabilizes the gravitational pull of the central plot, protagonist, and message in a traditional novel.

This decentralization, the focus on society’s castaways and their surroundings and vernacular, is typical of Bhattacharya’s body of work. Banerjee’s acrobatic translation is both enormously fun and true to the radical content. The writing disrupts the hegemony of the English language from the inside by celebrating the multilingualism possible within it. Harbart’s English is characterized by staccato dialogue, aurality, sensory experience, and inventive swearing: “Illi! Fucking willy! So many big people—lawyers—doctors—everyone—believed but now all of a sudden blam, it’s a sham! Some strand of pubic hair from somewhere—and I have to go to him and confess. Why? I am a monkey and you’re my uncle? Carbuncle!”

Additionally, the Bengali original is full of English phrases, which can act as status symbols or simple residue of globalization. The translation maintains these phrases in italics. Their clumsy affectation often makes a buffoon of the speaker: “Then he turned to the cameraclicking girl and said, ‘See, as soon as you expose them, they begin to scream and shout. They think that all this melodrama will help them get away with it.’ ‘But he seems to be a dud,’ . . . ‘Oh, he’s a sweet, cute, small-time crook.’ . . . Harbart got angrier. ‘Don’t think your English talking scares me! Fucking English!’”

Without giving away the ending, I will say that it summarizes what’s been already demonstrated throughout the novel: the most explosive volatility is found in what is most thoroughly overlooked.

*****

Read more reviews on the Asymptote blog:

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

New Guatemalan publications, a feminist conference, as well as awards in translation feature in this week's literary updates!

This week brings notable translations of up-and-coming Guatemalan authors, an insightful conversation between two Nigerian writers, and the announcement of highly-regarded translation prizes in the UK. If you’ve been searching for exciting new writers and translators, look no further!

José García Escobar, Editor-at-Large for Guatemala, reporting from Guatemala

In early December, Ugly Duckling Presse (UDP) put out No Budu Please, a selection of poems by the Guatemalan and Garifuna author Wingston González, translated by the Puerto Rican poet Urayoán Noel. No Budu, which has been favorably reviewed by Columbia Journal, Verse, and PANK, marks the first time Wingston’s work has been published in the United States. Additionally, Wingston’s book place of comfort has been incorporated into artist Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa’s performance and installation Heart of the Scarecrow, which will be on exhibit through March 9 at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.

Across the pond, independent publishing house Charco Press is bringing another Guatemalan author into the English language. Celebrated short story writer Rodrigo Fuentes published a collection called Trucha panza arriba in Guatemala in 2017. Since then, the book has been reissued in Bolivia by Editorial El Cuervo and in Colombia by Laguna Libros. Trucha was even longlisted for the Premio Hispanoamericano de Cuento Gabriel García Márquez. And as of February 7, thanks to researcher and translator Ellen Jones, Trucha is now available in English as Trout, Belly Up. You can read one of the stories from the collection in our Winter 2019 issue.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

Find the latest in world literature here!

This week, join our wonderful Asymptote staff members, Barbara, Rachael, and Nina, as they bring you literary updates from Albania, Spain, and the United States. From prestigious national literary awards to new and noteworthy titles and translations, there is plenty to discover in this week’s dispatches. 

Barbara Halla, Editor-at-Large for Albania, reporting from Albania:

December was a productive month for Albanian publishers, a natural result of the conclusion of the Tirana Book Fair and the expected increase in book sales that marks the holiday period. On December 18, 2018, the Albanian Ministry of Culture conferred the National Award for Literature for the best books published in 2017. Henrik Spiro Gjoka won the “Best Novel” award for his work Sonatë për gruan e një tjetri (A Sonnet for Another Man’s Wife), which details the life of a psychiatrist who falls in love with one of his patients. Translator Aida Baro won the “Best Translated Novel” award for her rendition into Albanian of Primo Levi’s The Truce (translated into English by Stuart J. Woolf), the continuation of Levi’s autobiography, If This is a Man.

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What’s New in Translation: January 2019

You won't be lacking reading material in the new year with these latest translations, reviewed by Asymptote team members.

Looking for new books to read this year? Look no further with this edition of What’s New in Translation, featuring new releases translated from Kurdish, Dutch, and Spanish. Read on to find out more about Abdulla Pashew’s poems written in exile, Tommy Wieringa’s novel about cross-cultural identities, as well as Agustín Martínez cinematic thriller.

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Dictionary of Midnight by Abdulla Pashew, translated from the Kurdish by Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse, Phoneme Media (2018)

Review by Jacqueline Leung, Editor-at-Large for Hong Kong

Dictionary of Midnight is a collection of several decades of Abdulla Pashew’s poetry as he recounts the history of Kurdistan and its struggle for independence. Translated from the Kurdish by Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse, the work includes a map of contemporary Iraq and a timeline of Kurdish history for those unfamiliar with the plight of the Kurds, something Pashew, one of the most influential Kurdish poets alive today, has taken upon himself to convey and to honor.

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What’s New in Translation: December 2018

Travel to Cuba, South Korea, and Russia with these newly translated works.

Just like that, the final weeks of 2018 are upon us. You might be looking for Christmas gifts, or perhaps some respite from the stress of the festive season, or maybe for something new to read! We have you covered here in this edition of What’s New in Translation, with reviews by Asymptote staff of three fresh titles from Wendy Guerra, Hwang Sok-Young, and Lez Ozerov.

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Revolution Sunday by Wendy Guerra, translated from the Spanish by Achy Obejas, Melville House, 2018

Reviewed by Cara Zampino, Educational Arm Assistant

“What is left after your voice is nullified by the death of everything you ever had?” asks Cleo, the narrator of Wendy Guerra’s Revolution Sunday. Set in the “promiscuous, intense, reckless, rambling” city of Havana during the restoration of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba, Guerra’s genre-defying book explores questions of language, memory, and censorship as it intertwines images of Cleo, a promising but controversial young writer, and Cuba, a country whose narratives have long been controlled by its government.

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