MCLC: Asymptote, Spring 2014

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Lee Yew Leong <editors at asymptotejournal.com>
Subject: Asymptote, Spring 2014
*****************************************************

Asymptote's Spring issue is Here

Chinese highlights:

- A new story by Sun Yisheng, "The Stone Ox That Grazed," tr. Nicky Harman

- Nobel winner Herta Müller's "The Space Between Languages," a new
nonfiction translated into Chinese by our Chinese contributing editor
Francis Li Zhuoxiong--better known as the Golden Melody Award-winning
lyricist behind Karen Mok's songs--and 10 other languages!

- Two short stories representing China in our annual English-language
fiction feature themed on diaspora: "Chinafrica" by Spanish author Daniel
Aristi, and "Why do Chinese People Have Slanted Eyes?" by Singaporean
author Amanda Lee Koe.

Other highlights include:

new writing by Jonathan Littell and David Bellos (author of "Is That a
Fish in Your Ear?"), an introduction to Marianne Fritz, videos by Grace
Weir and Rafaël; poetry by Sébastian Smirou and Yousef el Qedra; and our
first work from Botswana, Congo and Uganda!

Find our new issue here:

http://asymptotejournal.com

Watch our issue trailer here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KplBUaRV9os

Now with updates about world literature at our blog here:

http://asymptotejournal.com/blog

We're recruiting! Available openings here:

http://www.asymptotejournal.com/news.php

Want to help us reach our funding goal?

http://www.asymptotejournal.com/donate.php

The official mailer for our Apr 2014 edition is here:

http://www.asymptotejournal.com/view_edm.php?id=25

Text of Mailer:

One swallow does not make a summer, nor a spring. Like birds chased out of
their natural dwellings or those that overshoot their breeding grounds due
to climate change, so are human migratory patterns anything but seasonal.
This edition of Asymptote is dedicated to the notion of diaspora.
Alongside an English-language feature comprising writers from Bosnia,
Botswana, India, Singapore, Japan and the US (the 81-year-old
Japanese-American debut novelist Gene Oishi), we're proud to showcase
fiction and nonfiction written by or about people who've left their home
country. From Dremko Candil, a Uruguayan refugee in Sweden, to Nobel
winner Herta Müller, herself once exiled from Soviet-era Romania to a
different Germany than that of her ancestors, these writers show us that
"each language has different eyes sitting inside its words." (Video
trailer here.)

Vladimir Vertlib, for instance, made it to Austria from his native Russia
via Israel, the Netherlands, the US, and Italy, where his novel excerpt is
set. Frequent contributor Jonas Hassen Khemiri, a writer of Tunisian and
Swedish descent, not only led the writing workshop from which Candil's
moving and Joe Brainard–inspired piece sprang, he also graces us with an
excerpt from his latest play, which addresses the suspicion and paranoia
those that look different are faced with in cities haunted by terrorism.
In nonfiction, meanwhile, the dark documentary photography of Bénédicte
Kurzen is paired with Prix Goncourt winner Jonathan Littell's report on
the Ugandan military's search for stray soldiers of Joseph Kony's LRA, an
army made up of kidnapped children now scattered and stateless among the
wilderness bordering Congo and South Sudan.

The rest of our issue hails from places as diverse as Palestine (poems by
Yousef el Qedra) and Thailand (a short story from S.E.A. Write Awardee
Prabda Yoon), and deals with translating Oulipo master Raymond Queneau and
surveying the state of Bulgarian poetry, among other matters. In our
visual section, a poem by Rimbaud is turned into a short film in Korean as
directed by the Spanish artist Rafaël. There is the clipped and conceptual
work of Russian poet Lev Rubinstein and a novella excerpt from Marianne
Fritz, a reclusive Austrian author who once published a 3,392-page book
that was as admired by Jelinek and Sebald as it was reviled by Bernhard.
An essay by her translator, contributing editor Adrian West, introduces
her to our voracious readers.

In the spirit of the northern-hemispheric spring, animals amble through
this issue like gawky foals through blushing fields, appearing as little
zebras in the work of Serbian poet Ana Ristović, as Cindy the
clover-chewing cow in a cycle by Sébastien Smirou, as a stone ox in Sun
Yisheng's Brothers Grimm-like fable, as a tiger caged in a Tokyo mall,
and—more ominously—as a newborn three-headed Easter lamb in a poem by
Sándor Kányádi. All is illustrated by the swirling watercolors of Japanese
guest artist Hidetoshi Yamada.

If you were lucky enough to attend one of our eight anniversary events
(see the new Events page for full-on photo, podcast or even video
documentation), you know all about our latest funding drive, aiming to
collect $10,000 by the end of April so that we can continue bringing you
great writing from around the world and organize a second edition of our
Close Approximations translation competition. Please take a moment to
donate anything you might be willing to spare, spread the word about this
funding drive, and check out our Recruitment page, where we list the
positions in the worldwide team of Asymptote volunteers that are still
open. (Deadline: 21 Apr or until filled.) We hope you enjoy the issue!