Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

October 6, 2023 | in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup | by Marina García Pardavila, Sofija Popovska, and Wambua Muindi

The latest in literary news from North Macedonia, Spain, and Kenya!

In this round of weekly updates from our Editors-at-Large, we hear about literary festivals, awards, and the latest translations from North Macedonia, Spain, and Kenya! From a festival themed “Air. Wind. Breathing.” to a recently completed translation of the Bible, read on to learn more!

Sofija Popovska, Editor-at-Large, reporting from North Macedonia

The first weeks of autumn in North Macedonia brought exciting developments to the literary scene: the third installment of the Skopje Poetry Festival took place from September 24–28. The event spanned several venues, including the historic movie theater “Frosina”, the Skopje city library, and the bookshop-cafe “Bukva”. The festival opened with a performance entitled “Air. Wind. Breathing.”—a theme that was maintained throughout, as some of the readings were accompanied by musical improvisations with wind instruments.

Represented at the Skopje Poetry Festival was a diverse range of cultures; Danish, Serbian, French-Syrian, Maltese, and Croatian poets gave readings alongside local authors. Aside from readings, there were screenings of several movies based on the poetry of Aco Šopov. One of the adapted poems was Horrordeath, which was featured in the Winter 2023 issue of Asymptote Journal in Rawley Grau and Christina E. Kramer’s translation. The screenings were followed by a musical concert, a creative writing workshop headed by Immanuel Mifsud (a Maltese author and recipient of the European Union Prize for Literature), a panel discussion on increasing the visibility of Macedonian literature abroad, and a yoga session in nature. Young Macedonian poets also had a chance to make their voices heard, during the “Springboard” event on September 24 dedicated to poets between the ages of 16 and 25.

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

June 16, 2023 | in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup | by Jiaoyang Li, Marina García Pardavila, and Sofija Popovska

The latest from North Macedonia, China, and Spain!

In this week of news in world literature, we hear from our Editors-at-Large on recent literary awards, revolutionary bookstores, and book fairs around the globe! From North Macedonia’s Novel of the Year to prizes for works across genres and languages in Spain, read on to learn more!

Sofija Popovska, Editor-at-Large, reporting from North Macedonia

At the end of May, the 24th “Novel of the Year” award, given by the Slavko Janevski foundation, was presented to the author Vlada Urošević for his novel “Вистината но не многу веројатна историја за семејството Пустополски за куќата покрај Вардар и за четирите прстени” (The true, yet not very likely tale of the Pustopolski family, of the house by Vardar river, and the four rings).

Urošević (b. October 17, 1934), who received the most prestigious Macedonian poetry award earlier this spring, is a writer, poet, and essayist. His oeuvre includes a wide array of literary genres—prose, poetry, essays, travelogs, literary and art criticism, and translations. His work as a full-time professor of comparative literature at the University of St Cyril and Methodius in Skopje is present not only in his lyrical oeuvre—his novel, too, blends different cultures together to create a thrilling, artful narrative.

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

January 21, 2022 | in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup | by Carol Khoury, Erica X Eisen, and Julia Sherwood

New festivals, publications, and films from Slovakia, Palestine, and Kazakhstan!

This winter, festivals and events across the globe introduce new literature in translation, while literary magazines and film festival screenings amplify underrepresented voices. In Slovakia, recent works explore sexual identity, the weight of twentieth-century history, and trauma. From Palestine, Arablit and Arablit Quarterly launched its first “In Focus” section, spotlighting Iraqi literature. In Kazakhstan, the film Akyn highlights the political power of writing, acquiring greater significance in the context of recent governmental restrictions on free speech. Read on to find out more!

Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting on Slovakia

In October 2021, Barbora Hrínová was declared the winner of Slovakia’s most prestigious literary prize, the Anasoft Litera. The jury praised her remarkable debut collection Jednorožce (Unicorns) for writing “about otherness without exoticizing or exploiting it, thus enabling us to accept different ways of life or the search for identity.” As the author herself put in a recent interview: “Otherness in Unicorns occurs on two levels; one is literal, where the characters from the LGBTI+ community belong by definition, and the other is universal, all-human; after all, every person is a minority in their own right. I didn’t want to emphasize the element of sexual identity or outward difference in the characters, because I think that such people are part of everyday life and no different from the majority in any essential way. Rather, I was interested in and irritated by the way they are perceived by society, which often reacts very dismissively and critically to even a minor deviation from the norm. I wanted to create a space in the stories where we could also look at the ‘different characters,’ or a variety of shortcomings in a somewhat more human way.” The fact that Hrínová’s collection also won the 2021 René Prize, chosen by secondary school students, testifies to the author’s empathetic handling of a sensitive subject.

November 2021 marked the centennial of the passing of Slovakia’s national poet, Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav. This brief video, recorded for the Slovak consulate in New York City by Columbia University professor Christopher W. Harwood, is a great primer for anyone not familiar with Hviezdoslav’s work. Literature scholar Charles Sabatos gave a captivating Zoom talk on Gejza Vámoš (1901–1956), another Slovak writer not yet widely known in the English-speaking world. Sabatos, who is translating Vámos’s seminal Atómy boha (God’s Atoms), published in 1928 and 1933, focused on issues of language and identity in this book, summed up by one critic as “a novel of heroism and syphilis.”

While this translation awaits publication, two recent works by contemporary Slovak writers appeared in October, inaugurating Seagull Books‘s Slovak list: Boat Number Five by Monika Kompaníková (translated by Janet Livingstone) and Necklace/Choker by Jana Bodnárová (translated by Jonathan Gresty). TranslatorsAloud features excerpts from both books: a bilingual reading by the author and translator in one case and a reading by the translator in the other, while an interview with Jana Bodnárová is available on Trafika Europa Radio.