Posts featuring Ugoran Prasad

Translation Tuesday: Madwoman in the Kitchen by Ugoran Prasad (UWRF Feature)

As far as I’m concerned, though, being poisoned alive is much more gruesome.

In this fourth installment of A World with a Thousand Doors, our collaboration with the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, Indonesian writer Ugoran Prasad takes us into a kitchen where an unsavory secret is on the boil. The festival starts tomorrow, so if you’ve just decided on the spur of the moment that you’ll be heading to Bali, you’re in luck! Asymptote readers can save a 20% on a 4-day pass by entering the promo code MPAS at the online checkout.

Shortly before his death, Wak Haji Mail grew delirious. At first, no one caught what he was saying. I don’t think it’s because no one could. It’s just that no one would. Once I was allowed to hear, I myself immediately digested, not words, but fragments of a name repeated between gasps for breath. Saodah.

Two weeks after the hospital gave up and returned Wak Haji Mail to his home, he had yet to be met by Izrail, the angel of death. The fourteen children from his three marriages found it more and more difficult to muffle their anxiety. They took turns keeping vigil outside the room, ready to rebel at an unjust distribution of inheritance. But the distribution couldn’t possibly be just.

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

Join us for a spin across the literary world!

Another week full of exciting news! Paul and Kelsey bring us up to speed on what’s happening in Mexico and Guatemala. We also have José García providing us with all the updates about Central American literary festivals you could wish for. Finally, we are delighted to welcome aboard our new team-members, Valent and Norman, who share news from Indonesia. 

Paul Worley and Kelsey Woodbury, Editors-at-Large for Mexico, report:

In conjunction with partners such as the Forum of Indigenous Binational Organizations (FIOB) and the Indigenous Community Leadership (CIELO), the LA Public Library in California, US, recently announced that it will host the second annual Indigenous Literature Conference on July 29 and 30. As stated on Facebook, the conference’s “first day will be dedicated to the indigenous literature from (the Mexican state of) Oaxaca,” with “the second (being) broader in scope.” Among those slated to participate are the Oakland, California-based Zapotec writer and artist Lamberto Roque Hernández, Zapotec poet Natalia Toledo, and Me’phaa poet Hubert Matiuwaa, whose Xtámbaa was recently reviewed here in Asymptote.

On July 14 in Guatemala, K’iche’/Kaqchikel Maya poet Rosa Chávez announced the publication of a new poetry fanzine entitled AB YA YA LA. Limited to 40 in number, each copy is unique and contains different details.

READ MORE…