- Featuring
- Anaïs Meier
- Maureen Freely
- Andrea Chapela
- Tasos Leivaditis Richard Hegelman on Corinne Hoex
- Elfriede Jelinek and Thomas Bernhard
You here for the party? Step this way! Bigger than any conversation pit, our newly furnished Summer 2022 edition boasts a staggering thirty-one-country capacity. From Austria, expect a darkly gossipy Elfriede Jelinek, who will be bringing along her whiny friend Thomas Bernhard (Tom doesn’t get out of his house too much, and it shows). Representing Algeria on the other hand is Habib Tengour; there he is, showing off a beloved trinket! Best known for introducing Orhan Pamuk to English readers, Maureen Freely is also in the house, regaling everyone with tales from her Istanbul childhood. In the corner, we have a cluster of French-, German-, and Italian-speaking guests huddled over a platter of cheese. One of them happens to be cheese expert Anaïs Meier, who swears by her compatriots’ rich inner lives (very much on display in the Swiss Literature Feature, sponsored by Pro Helvetia): “As a Swiss gets older, the outer rind toughens, but in their heart the cheese continues to seethe, hot and liquid.”
The game we’ll be playing tonight is Spot the Mise en Abyme! In case you don’t know the term, it literally means “placed in the abyss”; go here for examples of this mirroring literary device. How about one from the issue itself to get you started? See the Tower of Babel right here on the cover, gorgeously illustrated by Seattle-based guest artist Lu Liu? It’s picked up in the beautifully expansive poem by Almog Behar and again in the poignant nonfiction by Jimin Kang, before being reflected back in this Tower of Babel-like gathering of eighteen languages. (After all, according to Mexican essayist Andrea Chapela, “All this language is like a game of mirrors, multiplying to infinity whatever it touches.”) The guest who emails, with substantiation, the most mises en abyme—across all the texts in the new issue—by 30 August will win a prize worth USD50, along with publication in our blog.
What’s that? Our drink policy? It’s usually BYOB, but no worries—drinks are on the house today. That said, these carefully curated soirées are actually a lot of work and we aren’t eligible for sponsorship from the Ministry of Parties due to our international setup, unlike other similar parties you may have checked out. So if you enjoy these gatherings and would like to see them continue, we recommend taking just three minutes today to become a sustaining or masthead member. Believe me: nothing would elicit a more joyous whoop! from all of us than your generous support. Until October, you can get the latest updates in your mailbox by subscribing to our newsletters, or by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and in our daily blog. Interested in submitting work? We guarantee a one-month turnaround time for all submissions (with the opportunity for editorial feedback). Or do you fancy being part of our Book Club, or even joining the Asymptote team? Either way, we would love to have you. Finally, we’re now actively inviting collaborations, so if you’d like to sponsor a country-themed feature, hire us for an event or a manuscript consultation, or simply leverage our platform to reach a wider audience for your product, just fill in this form and we’ll get back to you!
Well, that’s enough banter from me. Don’t let me hold you back from meeting our wonderful guests and discovering for yourself how they all interact. Go right in and mingle!
Editorial Team for Issue July 2022
Editor-in-Chief: Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)
Assistant Managing Editors: Daljinder Johal (UK/India), Marina Dora Martino (Italy), Janet Phillips (UK/Australia), Laurel Taylor (USA), and Michal Zechariah (USA)
Section Editors:
Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)
Caridad Svich (USA/UK)
Barbara Halla (Albania)
Berny Tan (Singapore)
Editor of Special Feature on Swiss Literature: Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)
Assistant Editors: Alyea Canada (USA), Whitney DeVos (Mexico/USA), Sabrina Greene (USA), Jaedyn Hedman (USA), Shawn Hoo (Singapore), Gabriela Lemos (USA), M.L. Martin (Canada), Maya Nguen (USA), Megan Sungyoon (South Korea), Fairuza Hanun Razak (Indonesia), Alex Tan (Singapore), and Lin Chia-Wei (Taiwan)
Assistant Interview Editors: Rose Bialer (USA) and Michal Zechariah (USA)
Contributing Editors: Ellen Elias-Bursac (USA), Aamer Hussein (UK), Sim Yee Chiang (Singapore), Dylan Suher (USA), and Adrian West (USA)
Translation Tuesdays Editor: Shawn Hoo (Singapore)
Art Director: Lee Yew Leong (Taiwan/Singapore)
Director, Educational Arm: Kent Kosack (USA)
Editor-at-large, Argentina: Josefina Massot
Editor-at-large, Guatemala: José García
Editor-at-large, El Salvador: Nestor Gomez
Editors-at-large, Hong Kong: Jacqueline Leung and Charlie Ng Chak-Kwan
Editor-at-large, India: Suhasini Patni
Editor-at-large, Mexico: Alan Mendoza Sosa
Editor-at-large, Palestine: Carol Khoury
Editor-at-large, Philippines: Alton Melvar M. Dapanas
Editor-at-large, Romania and Moldova: MARGENTO
Editor-at-large, Slovakia: Julia Sherwood
Editor-at-large, Uzbekistan: Filip Noubel
Editor-at-large, Vietnamese Diaspora: Thuy Dinh
Masthead for Issue July 2022
Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Interview, and Special Features: Lee Yew Leong
Drama: Caridad Svich
Criticism: Barbara Halla
Visual: Berny Tan
Illustrations and Cover: Lu Liu
Assistant Managing Editor (supervising issue production): Janet Phillips
Assistant Managing Editors (supervising Assistant Editors): Laurel Taylor and Marina Martino
Assistant Managing Editors (supervising Editors-at-large): Daljinder Johal and Michal Zechariah
Chief Executive Assistant: Rachel Farmer
Senior Executive Assistants: Angela Bulgari, Julie Shi, and Anna Thyregod Wilcks
Executive Assistant: Chinmay Rastogi
Blog Editors: Erica Eisen, Darren Huang, and Xiao Yue Shan
Newsletter Editor: Amaryllis Gacioppo
Art Director: Lee Yew Leong
Guest Artist Liaison: Berny Tan
Senior Copy Editors: George Macbeth, Janet Phillips, Maggie Wang, and Rachel Stanyon
Copy Editors: Nadiyah Abdullatif, Andrea Blatz, Bella Bosworth, Mia Manns, Lily Parmar, Matilde Ribeiro, and Liam Sprod
Technical Manager: József Szabó
Director of Outreach: Georgina Fooks
English Social Media: Ruwa Alhayek, Samantha Mateo, Oliva Roslansky, Annilee Newton, and Livia Djelani
Spanish Social Media: Sergio Serrano, Sofia Monzon, and Madeline Robinson
French Social Media: Filip Noubel
Graphic Designer: Michael Laungjessadakun
Marketing Manager: Samantha Seifert
Director, Educational Arm: Kent Kosack
Educational Arm Assistants: Irmak Ertuna, Mary Hillis, Thirangie Jayatilake, A.M. Ringwalt, and Anna Rumsby
Book Club Managers: Carol Khoury and Anna Doben
Asymptote would like to acknowledge the support especially of: 
as well as Adrian Flückiger, Alison Gore, Nathalie Beul Vandenberghe, Nora Bojar, and Rachael Daum.
For their generous donations this past quarter, our heartfelt thanks go too to Alexander Dickow, Chris Tanasescu, Elizabeth Raible, Harry Leeds, Ian Chung, Jeffrey Boyle, Jason Dunstall, Jenna Colozza, Joseph Hutchison, Joyce Shapiro, Katarzyna Bartoszynska, Phuong Anh Nguyen, Laura Green, Lynn O'Neal, Marcelene Isaacson, Marjolijn de Jager, Mark Cohen, Martin Ingebrigtsen, Martin Orwin, Matthew Mazowita, Mo O'Mahony, Monty Reid, Nhi Ta Huong, Philip Feinsilver, Ryan Chartrand, Sharon Wood, Thomas Carroll, Velina Manolova, William Cadwallader, and Xiangxiu Meng.
