A giant of contemporary Hungarian literature, Miklós Vámos melds vast existential questions with bread-and-butter concerns in his spellbinding short story, “Electric Train.” Published in Asymptote’s Winter 2024 issue, “Electric Train” approaches the traditional family drama at a slant, discarding the tropes of dramatic realism in favor of a jester-like narratorial voice that boldly announces, “In ..read more

A trio of untitled poems from the Belarusian poet Dzmitry Rubin is this week’s Translation Tuesday feature. Under the threat of repression and the menace of war, the poems, translated from the Belarusian by Jenya Mironava, are skeletal and whisper-quiet, written as if to be conveyed by the shallowest of breaths. The first murmurs of Belarus’s rich literary legacy, unmourned and un-remembered; the ..read more

Aigerim Tazhi’s “Following the Breath of the Earth” is a refreshing reminder of another way of life through Kazakh spirituality—one that treasures the interconnectedness of nature and all of the species in it, where nature stands for truth in an undivided and nonhierarchical ecosystem. The ancestral belief in the gods of the sky (Tengri) and ..read more

This week, our Editors-at-Large celebrate writers of children’s literature, experimental postmodern novels, and memoirs of oppression. From a celebration of a beloved poet in Mexico to a new novel by a novelist and comics scholar in North Macedonia, to a recently republished chronicle of Greece’s years under dictatorship, read on to learn more! Sofija Popovska ..read more

In January 2019, Maya K’iche’ poet Humberto Ak’abal passed away, thus transcending into the eternal silence—perhaps the same silence inhabited by his seismic poems. He was sixty-six. In life, Humberto published more than thirty books, and his work has been translated into more than twenty languages—including English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Arabic. He remains ..read more

These days, many of the images we see from Palestine are ones of unbearable violence—a necessary example of what Roland Barthes called “the experiential order of proof”. However, despite the vital role of these photographs in bearing witness and documenting the ongoing atrocity, there is an equally essential need to elaborate this unidimensional representation with the ..read more

A lake and a film set are both sites of trauma in today’s unforgettable Translation Tuesday showcase—a sensitive coming-of-age story by Italian author Michele Orti Manara in frequent contributor Brian Robert Moore’s effortless translation. An actress in a film set has been hospitalized;  the narrator—a mere twelve-year old with zero acting experience—has been asked by her director-father to step into the ..read more

Anomaly by Andrej Nikolaidis, translated from the Montenegrin by Will Firth, Peirene Press, 2024 I am an Apocalyptist. I believe that Good will win out in the end, and when it does, the world as we know it will be abolished—it will no longer exist. So, once that world is gone, Good will prevail. If ..read more

This week, our Editors-at-Large take us around the world for book launches, book fairs, and literary prizes! From a former Police Commandant’s memoir in Kenya, to a “harrowing” new release in France, to a mobile poetry reading in New York City, read on to learn more! Wambua Muindi, Editor-at-Large, Reporting from Kenya On Saturday, April 6 ..read more

The Ukraine by Artem Chapeye, translated from the Ukrainian, Russian, and Surzhyk by Zenia Tomkins, Seven Stories Press, 2024 ‘This next part is my favorite part of traveling’, the narrator of the Artem Chapeye’s opening story ‘Pan Ivan and the Three Bears’ tells his friends as they are invited into a local man’s mountain home to shelter ..read more