Asymptote Journal has put together a special feature on Latin American fiction for their July issue. Amongst this rich issue are some stand out Latin American writers. See the full contents here.
Our special feature on Latin American fiction continues this theme of rebellion, with warm tributes to Gabriel García Márquez (by his Portuguese translator), Julio Cortázar (by the great Chejfec), and Osvaldo Lamborghini (by Aira, translated by recent English PEN Award winner and Asymptote contributing editor Adrian West) appearing alongside authors translated into English for the very first time: Julián Herbert (Mexico) and Nona Fernández (Chile). Poetry opens with Waly Salomão, a jet-lagged poet from Syria and Brazil, and closes with Raúl Zurita, the Chilean poet and performance artist who wrote some of the largest poems ever using bulldozers and skywriting planes.
Beyond our striking cover, emblazoned with a polar bear and a map leaping off an iceberg, the juxtaposition of man versus animal extends into Fiction (where Zsófia Bán channels the USSR’s first dog in space and Faruk Šehić‘s terrestrial astronaut learns to read fish), Nonfiction (where Uyghur writer Patigul mimics a monkey), and even to our largest-ever Criticism section (where Guadalupe Nettel translates “animal traits to human behavior”). Throughout, guest artist Robert Zhao Renhui‘s mysterious photography highlights man’s fragile position vis-à-vis the natural world, complementing an exciting lineup that includes César Aira, Sergio Chejfec, Amit Chaudhuri, Daniel Hahn, Mary Jo Bang & Yuki Tanaka, ‘Misty poet’ Wang Xiaoni, Mui Poopoksakul‘s survey of Thai fiction, and a review of Qiu Miaojin‘s Last Words from Montmartre alongside an excerpt from a now-uncensored feminist classic from 1954, Thérèse and Isabelle, Violette Leduc‘s scandalous account of convent-girl passion (a treat if you’ve just caught Martin Provost’s “Violette” at the cinema).
