Posts featuring Elena Poniatowska

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

The latest news from the Czech Republic and Mexico!

This week, our editors from around the globe report on new translations of Czech poetry, as well as books fairs and celebrations of acclaimed writers in Mexico. Read on to find out more!

Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting on the Czech Republic

On 19 May, Bianca Bellová launched the English translation of her award-winning novel The Lake at the Czech Centre in London. “Whether The Lake is better described as dystopian or realistic depends, I suppose, on one’s opinion about the state of the world and what can be done about it,” said the book’s translator Alex Zucker. For him, the book “stands out for the incisiveness of its style and the evocativeness of its setting,” he told Alexandra Büchler in an interview published as part of Parthian Books’ Talking Translation series.

Meanwhile, Büchler’s own translation of the poetry collection Dream of a Journey by Kateřina Rudčenková has been longlisted for the coveted Oxford Weidenfeld Prize. You can read a tribute to Büchler, a tireless advocate for the translation of literature from Wales in both English and Welsh into languages across Europe through her role at Literature Across Frontiers. Those in the UK can catch Rudčenková and her fellow Czech poet Milan Děžinský at the Kendal Poetry Festival on 25 June, while poets Stephan Delbos and Tereza Riedlbauchová will be reading translations of each other’s poetry in Prague on 26 May.

There is more Czech poetry just out from Karolinum Press as part of its Modern Czech Classics series: The Lesser Histories by Jan Zábrana (1931-1984). In the words of its translator Justin Quinn, the collection “at times resembles a loose, shifting congregation of voices, some talking clearly, others muttering indistinctly, on occasion shifting from one language to another.” Quinn’s foreword, excerpted in LARB, provides a great introduction for Anglophone readers to Zábrana, a towering figure in Czech literature who, in addition to being a poet, was an outstanding translator from Russian and English, as well as a diarist whose “thousand pages or so of selected diaries bear witness to a splendid, if bitter, solitude.”

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Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

The latest literary news from Poland, Sweden, Mexico, and Argentina!

This week our writers report on literary prizes and new releases in Poland, a collaboration between two renowned Swedish authors, the 41st International Book Fair in Mexico City, and commemorative events for María Elena Walsh in Argentina. Read on to find out more! 

Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Poland

It’s never too late to #bemoreOlga—to quote Helen Vassallo (translatingwomen)—and report that Olga Tokarczuk is using some of her Nobel prize money to start a foundation to support writers and translators. To acknowledge the role translators played in her worldwide success, the Polish Association of Literary Translators has pulled together some stats: as of October 2019, 193 translations had appeared of Tokarczuk’s books into thirty-seven languages, with twelve more in the pipeline, by a total of ninety translators (names all listed here).

On January 20 the weekly Polityka awarded Olga Tokarczuk the Creator of Culture prize “for books that are ahead of their time, her style and for looking into the future of literature and our entire planet.” The prize was one of Polityka’s annual arts awards, with this year’s “Passport” for literature going to Dominika Słowik for her novel Zimowla (roughly, Huddling Together) a “thriller with horror elements, set in the small village of Cukrówka, a fascinating depiction of recent history.” In her acceptance speech, Słowik cheered the fact that, for the first time, all three shortlisted authors were women. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

Global literary news for global readers.

We’re back this week with important news and exciting new developments from the world of literature. Our Editors-at-Large in Mexico and Tunisia share the latest prizes, events and details relating to writers based within these regions. Tune in for more global updates next week! 

Sergio Sarano, Spanish Social Media Manager, reporting from Mexico: 

Jorge Volpi, one of Mexico’s most well-known authors, has won the very prestigious Alfagura Novel Prize for 2018. Alfagura is one of the most renowned publishing houses in the Spanish-speaking world, and the prize has previously gone to writers such as Elena Poniatowska (also the recipient of a Cervantes Prize), Laura Restrepo, and Andrés Neuman. The award consists of the publication of the novel and a very hefty sum of money: US$175,000, making it one of the richest prizes for fiction in the world. Una novela criminal (A Criminal Novel) is a non-fiction novel in the vein of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood; it takes up the notorious case of Israel Vallarta and Florence Cassez, a Mexican man and French woman accused of belonging to a kidnapping gang. The media eagerly covered the case, and it strained Mexican-French relations. Everyone in Mexico knows how the trial ended, but I’m sure the novel will be quickly translated into English—readers will be able to dig into this sordid story that weaves corruption, scandal, and diplomacy.

The Mexican literary community deeply mourned the death of Nicanor Parra, the Chilean antipoet. Numerous writers and poets voiced their debt to Parra and remembered his visits to Mexico in several media outlets. Honestly, very few Latin American writers can claim to have read his 1954 classic Poems and Antipoems and not wanting to become an antipoet. One of them was especially legendary: the time he went to Guadalajara to receive the first Juan Rulfo Prize (now called FIL Prize) back in 1991. There, Parra delivered his famous “Mai Mai Peñi” speech, in which he honored Juan Rulfo but at the same time ridiculed literary awards. One of its famous stanzas says: “The ideal speech / Is the one that doesn’t say a thing / Even though it seems like it says it all.” You can find “Mai Mai Peñi” and other classic mock-speeches in After-Dinner Declarations, translated by Dave Oliphant.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

Your weekly report on the latest in the world of literature.

We’re back for another exciting week of prizes, festivals and news about authors and events happening in the world of literature. Editors-at-Large on the ground in Nicaragua, Brazil and Egypt give us a run-down of the most important literary announcements from their regions. Watch this space for more news every Friday! 

José García Escobar, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Nicaragua:

Nicaragua hasn’t stopped celebrating its writers this week.

In perhaps the most important literary news from around the world, Nicaraguan writer, journalist, and politician Sergio Ramirez was announced as the latest recipient of the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, awarded annually to honor the lifetime achievement of a writer in the Spanish language. Awarded since 1976, previous recipients include Alejo Carpentier, Jorge Luis Borges, María Zambrano, Adolfo Bioy Casares, and Elena Poniatowska. Sergio became the first Central American writer to receive this distinction.

While the Cervantes Prize was still yet to be announced, the Nicaraguan poet Claribel Alegría got the prestigious Reina Sofía Prize for Iberoamerican Poetry. During the ceremony, Claribel received $49,000 and the publication of an anthology of her life’s work entitled Aunque dure un instante. 93-year old Claribel follows Sophia de Mello Breyner, Nicanor Parra, Antonio Gamoneda, and Ernesto Cardenal.

In Guatemala, F&G Editores just reissued and presented one of the most important poetry books in Guatemalan history, Vamos patria a caminar by the revolutionary poet Otto René Castillo. The book was originally published in 1965. One year later, in the early years of the Guatemalan armed conflict, Otto René returned to Guatemala after years of exile to join the guerrilla forces. In 1967 Otto René was captured, interrogated, tortured, and burned alive. To this day, Otto René Castillo remains one of the most important poets of Guatemala. His work has been praised by Luis Cardoza y Aragón, Roque Dalton, up to the newest generations of Central American poets. You can read some of his poems here.

On a final note, the Guatemalan children’s book publishing house Amanuense has released its new website after completing their move to South America. Amanuense is also finalizing the details of their participation in this year’s FIL (the Guadalajara International Book Fair), and they are days away from releasing Balam, Lluvia y la casa, the latest book of one of their champion writers, Julio Serrano Echeverría.

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