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Not another diversity panel

I realised I had grown tired of diversity panels when I found myself sitting on one, in front of a sell-out crowd, listening to the person next to me reel off, for five actual (not perceived, oh I timed it) minutes, the names of every single person of colour their publisher had ever published in its entire illustrious history. We weren’t here to debate the merits and statistics of that publisher’s track record. We were gathered to discuss the very real barriers that writers of colour experience on the road to getting published. Barriers faced by people of colour on the road to having the commissioning power to publish important books by writers of colour, not books that offer a ‘white gaze’ of the ‘ethnic’ experience, but books with nuance, texture, realism and truth. I walked to the train station from that event feeling tired and upset by what I had sat through, because I realised how little we had moved on from the diversity panel I had sat on five years before. Even then it was a tired debate.

You just have to read the Writing The Future report produced by Spread The Word to know how hard people of colour find the world of books. There is statistical data and there is anecdotal data. And yet, often, when presented with clear evidence of marginalised communities not being represented in the world of books, the reaction is usually one of three things:

1) That’s not me. I’m just so very tired of being called racist all the time. I only publish the best books in the world ever. How can I be a racist?

2) I know it’s a problem. I just don’t know what to do about it.

3) I love diversity. It’s a great thing. I would love nothing more than to have the world of books represent the world but a) this is a business, and books by writers of colour tend to not sell and b) in order for diversity to be achieved in a meaningful way, I might have to resign my job and step aside for someone with a different unconscious bias to me, and I just will not do that. I have to make rent.

Here’s my retort to those three things:

1) It’s not about you. No one called YOU racist. They called the system racist. You can either perpetuate it consciously or unconsciously, but we weren’t talking about you, my friend. Please don’t centre yourself. That’s the last thing we need. It’s not helpful for anyone.

2) Okay, I can work with this. The will is there. Let’s do this. Meet me in the corner of the staff canteen. Bring hydration, protein and something to write with and on. We can do this.

3) Okay so a) this is a business, I agree, but if you think books by writers of colour tend not to sell, actually what I’m hearing is, you don’t know how to sell them. To me, this isn’t a case of business, it’s a case of laziness. Maybe find someone who does know how to sell books to those communities. Also, how fucking insulting to be told that my skin colour, my skin colour, is a marketing trend, and not a very lucrative one at that. b) I get you. Rent is important. But the reality is that pushes for diversity often come to a stopping point, and that stopping point tends to be someone with commissioning power. So which is it: step aside or change your ways?

A bunch of things happened after that diversity panel and each of them led to me deciding to approach Unbound in order to produce The Good Immigrant. I’ve spoken about them before. Check the editor’s note of the book when/if you buy it after reading this :insert winking emoji here: and you can read about the Guardian comment that made me realise I wished to no longer justify my place at the table. Or read about the conversation with contributor Musa Okwonga where he reminded me of Chinua Achebe’s quote, ‘if you don’t like someone’s story, write your own’.

I put the book together because I wanted to showcase interesting writers of colour, each one deserving their own exciting book deals to do whatever they wanted. There wasn’t a manifesto and certainly not a post-Brexit narrative that influenced the book: that unfolded neatly and nicely post-result. I remember, twenty minutes after the result of the referendum, having someone threaten to set me on fire and another person demanding I be sent back to ‘brown land’. I thought, okay, the book just attained a level of political legitimacy I hadn’t expected before.

The interesting thing about choosing Unbound was that I got to disprove the myth that books by people of colour don’t sell. Because what better way to do that than to crowdfund for a book where the audience said, before a word of it had even been written, that they needed the book?

We get so many young people coming up to us after shows saying ‘thank you. I feel represented. It feels amazing.’ And I’m reminded of the Zadie Smith quote from White Teeth: ‘There was England, a gigantic mirror. And there was Irie without reflection.’

People of colour in England have often felt like Irie. I’m hoping that, with this book, we can hold up a small yet significant mirror to those people who often feel unrepresented and marginalised. Because this is our country too. And because we all know and believe that books can change lives, celebrate them and give them significance, I’m glad this book exists, and that these writers got the opportunity to hold up a tiny mirror to England.

Without overstating my significance in this (and sorry if I sound big-headed, that’s not the point I’m trying to make but), I did this on my own steam. Thanks to Unbound and all the contributors. But I’m just an unknown writer with a day job in youth work and a young child and his own books to write, and I did this. So imagine what an entire industry could do with all its power if it had the will.

We all want diversity. Let’s make it happen. Actually. Realistically. In a meaningful, significant way.

Because none of us wants to sit on another bloody diversity panel again.

The Good Immigrant: Nikesh Shukla, Eva Hoffman, Vahni Capildeo and Mike Phillips discuss what it means to be an immigrant in the UK today. Chaired by Razia Iqbal. The British Library, Tuesday 22 November 2016, 7pm.

Read about and buy The Good Immigrant on Unbound here.

Seeing in colour: a series of essays written by people of colour working in the publishing industry for the Bookseller.

November 10, 2016
The night before

Translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith.

I wrote this novel in the summer of 2009.

On the 20^th
of January that year, the South Korean administration murdered evictees in Yongsan, central Seoul. In the course of a mass demonstration, a huge conflagration broke out and six people died in the flames. It was an illegal mass operation in which service workers (civilians) were employed. The day before the incident, police called these service workers inside the police line, which they were not legally supposed to cross, and sent them inside the building where the evictees had gathered. In the over eight hours that the service workers spent inside, they forced the evictees up onto the roof where they would be cut off, lit a fire on the stairs and sent the smoke up to the roof. Though several fire engines were sent out during this process, the service workers who had remained outside the building threatened to throw the firefighters out. Later, a firefighter who was present in the courtroom said in testimony, ‘even though we requested the police to collaborate, they did not accept our request, and each time we went back unable to extinguish the fire’. The fire broke out on the 20^th
January, as soon as police special forces were deployed onto the roof. The entire process was broadcast live via an internet news channel, and many people witnessed the moment of the fire breaking out. I was one of those people.

After the incident, the incident itself became known as the ‘Yongsan Disaster’, and the site of the conflagration as ‘Namildang’. Families who had lost their loved ones and had the corpses taken from them by state bodies gathered at Namildang. They stood isolated there for over 300 days, demanding an apology from the government and the truth about the incident. Hundreds of police were constantly surrounding the building, cursing and attacking the bereaved families. There was also a court case centred on those who had died in the fire. In the case, the victim was the government authority and the assailants were the evictees. I attended the trial and wrote a five thousand word essay on it, titled ‘A Mouth That Eats A Mouth’ (this is the same as one of the chapter titles in One Hundred Shadows, but the content is different). Through the process of the trial, the circumstances of this disaster were revealed, in which money (capital) egged on evictees, service workers, and policemen to fight. Though the issue of who gave the order to suppress the evictees’ protest is extremely important, ‘no-one is the person who gave the order’ was the police executives’ consistent answer. The Lee Myung-bak government did not make public the 3000-page report investigating the police executives. The phrase ‘Yongsan disaster’ became a sensitive one for the duration of the Lee Myung-bak administration. Wherever you happened to be in the streets, if you were holding a picket with the words ‘Yongsan disaster’ written on it, a dozen police would rush over and encircle you.

And yet, such wretched scenes do not appear in this novel. People who have died through great violence, burning buildings, smoke, people who cannot come away from the place where their father or husband had been at the last, the attacks and isolation that they would experience as everyday occurrences, are not mentioned in this novel.

Over the course of the summer of 2009, I wrote One Hundred Shadows by day and at night I held a one-woman protest at Namildang. Because that place and the things that had happened there were so grim and miserable, I wanted to make something warm. It seemed at the time to be all that I could do. And so I wrote this story, and it became my first novel. There will be many readers who read it as a warm love story. Even in Korea, there were many readers who read it this way. But I was not constructing a love story while I was writing this novel. I thought of it as a novel about shadows. A story to do with despair and death and powerlessness, which, like shadows, exist universally throughout the human world. I thought that I had to write something in a place where people were crying every day, I wrote with the earnest wish for even a scant handful of warmth, and then, as I completed the final sentence and looked back at what I had written, I saw that it was love, that it was a song. I surprised even myself. Each time I am asked to talk about this novel, I find it difficult. And it is still more difficult to talk about it briefly. In general, I give two short answers: ‘One Hundred Shadows and ‘A Mouth That Eats A Mouth’ are twins with their backs to each other’, and ‘This book could also be titled The Night Before’. Before things at the electronics market come to a head, the way they did that night in Yongsan, seven years ago.

One Hundred Shadows by Hwang Jungeun, translated by Jung Yewon, is published by Tilted Axis Press. Find out more and order the book here.

PEN Presents helps literary translators to champion exciting books from around the world to be published in the UK. Submissions are now open for PEN Presents… East and South-east Asia. The deadline is Monday 5 December 2016.

October 27, 2016
New Books in German at 20

Jen Calleja: When did you begin editing NBG and what interested you in the role initially? Has your focus changed over time?

Charlotte Ryland: Being appointed to edit NBG in autumn 2009 was a bit of a dream-come-true for me. I was working full-time in academia, having recently finished a doctorate in German literature, but was becoming aware that an academic career wasn’t for me. I was keen instead to get involved in some sort of outreach work – to spend more time talking to people, basically – and to do more journalistic writing alongside my academic research. I must admit that, having spent ten years in the world of German Studies, I knew relatively little about contemporary German literature, and I was genuinely surprised by the quality of the books that I started to encounter. I also had no idea what a vibrant community I was about to join – the world of literary translation – and I guess my focus since has been influenced by that community. I’d only been in the job a year when I set up our ‘Emerging Translators Programme’, which is one of the things that I’m most proud of.

JC: It feels like such a significant achievement that NBG has been going for twenty years, what’s its life-blood (apart from the editor that is)?

CR: This is an easy one. NBG has an incredible support network, and is a great example of successful international cooperation. We are supported financially and in other ways by a wonderful set of partners from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the UK and the USA, and the collaboration really works. Our steering committee and editorial committees meet regularly and are full of very experienced people who really care about the project and its aims. Add to that the translators, reviewers, writers, designers and many others who support our work in a variety of ways, and you get an impression of the huge number of people working with a common aim. As editor, this means that life is bursting with emails and phone calls, and that can sometimes be overwhelming, but I’m certain that it’s the core of NBG’s success.

What was it like for you, jumping into a project with such a huge network?

JC: Well, having graduated my MA in German Studies only a year previously and having just finished a six month internship at the magazine before you offered me the role I definitely wasn’t prepared for the well-oiled and very serious machine that is NBG. I’d done my own small Anglo-German magazine Verfreundungseffekt before that, but I definitely didn’t have to coordinate committees for it. Or lead annual report meetings. Or stick to any kind of super tight schedule. I mean, we usually have task lists that have to be completed down to the week or more often the day otherwise things can start to slide. I remember being in awe of how positive and enthusiastic all the partners were from the start, and I quickly came to understand how NBG connects up so many people who speak so highly of it.

The magazine was founded out of a real need to get more German-language books published in English translation, and twenty years on it feels like we need it more than ever, would you agree?

CR: Yes! In fact, I don’t really know where to start in responding to that question. The referendum on the UK’s EU membership, and its aftermath, have been such an enormous blow, and it’s hard to see quite where to go next. I would usually say that there is a surfeit of books dealing with Germany’s 20^th
Century history in English translation – that it doesn’t reflect the wealth of German-language literature out there. But it’s starting to seem that an enormous number of people have already forgotten what happened in the 1930s and 40s, and have completely divorced their understanding of the EU from its founding concepts of peace and community.

How do you think that NBG can best respond to what’s happened this year?

JC: That’s obviously an enormous question – I would say that NBG and projects like it just have to keep going and not doubt for a second that they’re worthwhile and necessary. On bad days it might seem insignificant, but it is ultimately a gesture of being open, tolerant, curious and outward rather than inward looking. Sharing stories and communicating with one another are the most human of compulsions.

What have been your favourite NBG memories or moments? And what have been your greatest challenges?

CR: I’ve been very fortunate to travel to some wonderful literary festivals and gatherings while working for NBG. Leukerbad festival in the Swiss mountains was a particular highlight, as were the ‘Literature Days’ by the Danube in Austria. Spectacular backdrops for encounters with fascinating people – and it’s definitely the people that make the job so enjoyable. Challenges would have to be the enormous work-load and the never-empty inbox – which for a part-time freelance position can be tricky. And most recently, managing the redesign of our print issue was a challenge from which I may never recover. I’m really pleased with the outcome, but I vow never to manage a design committee again.

JC: The new – 40^th
! – issue has just come out, which we got to edit together. What are your personal highlights?

CR: Flattery aside, it was a genuine highlight to edit it with you! As you know, despite the huge support network, the editor’s job can be rather solitary and there’s certainly a major burden of responsibility for each issue. Sharing that, and having somebody else get to know the project so well, has been fantastic. In terms of this issue’s content, my two highlights are the interview with Anthea Bell – celebrating her 80^th
birthday – and the piece on the Emerging Translators Programme (ETP) and the NBG internship. Anthea is a wonderful person and working with her on the editorial committee has been a definitely career highlight. She has such a way with the written word, and this comes out beautifully in the interview – you can hear her speaking as you read, and it brings a smile to my lips every time. Just looking at the photos in the ETP piece makes me happy – I’m really pleased with how the programme has developed and with how well so many of the ‘graduates’ have done since then. Working with them all has been a very enriching experience.

And what about your highlights from the past two issues that you’ve edited?

JC: I think from issue 39 – the women’s issue – it would have to be the interview with Karen Duve on feminism: ‘femininity is like a bucket full of jam that gets tipped over your head as a child and then drips down on you throughout your life’. I’m so glad I bothered her publisher for an interview at the last minute. And in our anniversary issue I love the statements from past and present editors and partners for the anniversary spread. I vow to honour Rebecca Morrison’s traditional post-issue vodka and espresso while I’m here at Frankfurt Book Fair. I should probably wait till after all my meetings are done. I think I loved everything in the two issues I edited in 2013-2014 because I was so happy and proud that they got to print and I didn’t ruin everything.

What do you think the project’s greatest achievements have been since your time editing it began and what are your plans for the future?

CR: This question takes me back to the network idea. I think the project has expanded by interacting with other people and organisations, while still retaining its core focus of the twice-yearly magazine and the website. For the past four years we’ve been the media partner of the German Book Prize, publishing all the English material for the shortlisted authors, which has been a great development, and we’ve worked hard to expand our virtual presence through social media and the newly revamped website. Now that NBG is twenty, I’m keen to explore new avenues, particularly with a view to new collaborations. There are a huge number of organisations now that work to promote literatures in other languages, and we all share the single aim of bringing more literature in translation into the English-speaking world. I think that we can better achieve that aim by working together, and look forward to making that happen in the years to come.

Charlotte Ryland is editor of New Books in German and works at Oxford University, as Lecturer in German at The Queen’s College and Research Assistant on the Writing Brecht project (brecht.mml.ox.ac.uk).

Jen Calleja is acting editor of New Books in German and a literary translator from German. She is currently translating Dance by the Canal by Kerstin Hensel for Peirene Press and essays on art by Wim Wenders for Faber & Faber. www.jencalleja.com

Visit New Books in German online – a brand new website, plus read the latest edition of the journal.

Find the latest PEN-supported titles translated from German on the World Bookshelf, including Clemens Meyer’s Bricks and Mortar.

October 20, 2016
The 2016 PEN Pinter International Writer of Courage Award speech

Translated from the Bangla by Arunava Sinha.

Good evening.

My heartfelt good wishes and love to everyone present here. My thanks to PEN, especially to English PEN, for inviting me here and giving me this opportunity to speak.

I would like to express sincere thanks and gratitude to Margaret Atwood. Margaret has made me a partner today in her own accomplishment. I am delighted and humbled. This encouragement and inspiration will undoubtedly fortify me for the difficult journey ahead.

Friends.

Somehow, I survived with my life a year ago. Having overcome the initial shock, when I sensed that I had indeed survived, I realised deeply that it is in fact essential to be alive. I had probably never felt the sensations about life that I did then.

But the joy of this unexpected survival fades when Dipan’s face floats up in front of my eyes. When images of Abhijit and Ananta and Neel appear in my mind’s eye, in my consciousness, like a slideshow, asking questions. Their lives were beautiful too, and essential. When I think of the sacrifices made by the victims of murders and assaults over the past two years, the bonus of my life seems much more burdened. As you know, writer Ranadipam Basu and poet Tareq Rahim were injured along with me that day. Had they not been present to resist the attackers, I would not have had the chance to be standing here today. Tareq Rahim and Ranadipam Basu are still passing their days with their injuries and their trauma. Ranadipam Basu lives in a state of extreme insecurity in Bangladesh.

I would also like to inform you of the bloggers and writers who are currently living in countries neighbouring Bangladesh because of reasons of security. Many of their visas have expired. They were all well-established in their respective fields in Bangladesh. But now they are living in isolation with their wives and children in foreign lands, spending long days in extreme uncertainty. I would like to use this platform to draw the attention of international organisations to their predicament, and request that they be given secure sanctuaries and the opportunity to lead normal lives.

Friends.

As you know, the Ansarullah Bangla Team issued a statement taking responsibility for the attack on me. The Indian subcontinental branch of the Al Qayda had accepted responsibility for murdering Abhijit. And ISIS has announced that it was responsible for the recent vicious terror attack in Dhaka. It is now a proven fact that, despite different names, the roots of all these terrorist organisations built on Islamic principles converge at a single place. In its statement the Ansarullah Bangla Team had said that they wanted to murder me because I publish anti-Islamic books, and because I use my own writing, opinions, and other methods to support writers who criticise the Islamic faith for various inconsistencies. For many years now, for decades, in fact, there has been an attempt to change the Bangladesh state into one that conforms to Islamic principles. Those who want this supported the Pakistani forces during the war of independence in 1971 with the dream of an Islamic state, directly helping the worst genocide and mass rapes in history. Following the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh, the overt as well as covert support of not one but two military administrations enabled these forces to return to Bangladesh politics and establish a strong presence in mercantile and sociocultural activities.

In recent times, these Islamic political forces in Bangladesh have initiated various programmes to block the widespread interest among young people in science education, scientific consciousness, and the ideals of the war of independence that are being disseminated through online activism. The process of putting war criminals on trial has been going on at the same time. It is worth mentioning that online activists played a significant role in building public opinion and putting pressure on the government to conduct these trials of war criminals after 40 long years. Even as we talk here, Shamsuzzoha Manik, the septuagenarian publisher of Baw-Dweep Prokashoni has been languishing in jail for a long time for the crime of publishing books.

Friends.

All of you are more or less aware of the sequence of events that began in 2013 and are continuing today. I do not wish to test your patience with detailed descriptions of these. What I, and we, want to say is that there is a strong effort in Bangladesh to turn the wheels of civilisation backwards and repeat the events and lies of a barbaric era – but we cannot allow this initiative to go unchallenged. We are challenging this process through rational thinking and through our writing. Anyone who wishes to counter them can do so through their writing.

But please do not issue fatwas to have me, to have us, killed. Do not dispatch undercover assassins with knives and guns.

Friends.

The work I did involved rational, constructive criticism. And I was rapt in my own writing, particularly in my love for poetry. This was just where the fundamentalist forces struck. After Dipan’s death and after my leaving the country in an injured state, which publisher in Bangladesh will dare publish these challenges, these logical critiques? I had said in an interview from the hospital bed that I would not retreat. I am still determined now too. Because I know that books and texts can play a gigantic role in changing the mentality of society. That is why I wish to return to the world of books, to the world of publishing. Through any alternative medium that is available to me. I do not consider publishing to be a business alone, as far as I am concerned it is also a sociocultural movement. I am hopeful of being able to take new Bangla writing on new subjects to readers once again.

London is one of the seats of modern civilisation and culture. I feel a great sense of pride at being able to talk to all of you as a representative of freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of publication, here in the historic British Library in this historic city of London.

May you always stand by free thought and free reasoning.

My deepest thanks to all of you.

Ahmedur Rashid Chowdhury (aka Tutul) was born in Sunamganj, Bangladesh on 28 March 1973.

In 1990 Tutul published and edited the first issue of his magazine Shuddhashar which soon became a platform for a group of young writers. In 2004 Tutul established a publication house also entitled Shuddhashar, with the slogan ‘To inspire, not to impress’. Shuddhashar became famous for publishing young and free-thinking writers and to date has published around 1000 books. In 2013 Shuddhashar was presented with the Shahid Munir Chowdhury award by the Bangla Academy.

Tutul is also a writer, whose work has been published in numerous newspapers, magazine, and blogs. He has also published a collection of poetry entitled Nil Boshe Shish Kate Thot.

On 31 October 2015 Tutul was attacked in his offices by Islamic fundamentalists and left critically injured. Following the attack, he is now living in Norway as one of the International Cities of Refuge Network’s guest writers, where he is continuing to write poetry and hopes to start an online magazine. He is also studying and researching the rise of terrorism in Bangladesh and other third world countries.

Read this speech in the original Bangla here.

Margaret Atwood won the 2016 PEN Pinter Prize, awarded annually to a writer of outstanding literary merit who, in the words of Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize in Literature speech, casts an ‘unflinching, unswerving’ gaze upon the world and shows a ‘fierce intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies’. Find out more here.

Listen to audio from ‘Words Cannot Be Killed’, a PEN Atlas event marking the anniversary of the death of secular blogger Avijit Roy exploring freedom of expression in Bangladesh.

Read more about and take action for the slain Bangladeshi bloggers mentioned in this PEN Atlas, Avijit Roy, Ananta Bijoy Das and Niloy Neel.

October 14, 2016
The 2016 PEN Pinter International Writer of Courage Award speech [in Bangla]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1I0gGwVwIA?rel=0&w=500&h=281]

শুভ সন্ধ্যা।
এখানে যারা উপস্থিত আছেন তাদের সবাইকে আমার আন্তরিক শুভেচ্ছা ও ভালবাসা।
ধন্যবাদ পেনকে, বিশেষ করে ইংলিশ পেনকে। আমাকে এখানে আমন্ত্রণ জানিয়েছেন এবং কথা বলার সুযোগ দিয়েছেন বলে।
আমি আন্তরিক ধন্যবাদ ও কৃতজ্ঞতা প্রকাশ করছি মার্গারিট উড এর প্রতি। মার্গারিট আজ তার এক অর্জনের সাথে আমাকে অংশীদার করে নিলেন। আমি খুব খুব আনন্দিত এবং সন্মানিত বোধ করছি। এবং এই উৎসাহ এবং অনুপ্রেরণা নিশ্চয়ই আমাকে আগামীর কঠিন পথ চলাতে শক্তি যোগাবে।

সুধীবৃন্দ
একবছর আগে কিভাবে যেন বেঁচে গিয়েছিলাম। প্রাথমিক ধকল কাটিয়ে যখন অনুভব করেছিলাম যে বেঁচে গেছি, তখন সত্যি মনে হয়েছিল জীবনটা আসলেই খুব প্রয়োজনীয়। এর আগে কখনোই এভাবে জীবনকে অনুভব করতে পারিনি হয়ত।
কিন্তু আমার এই হঠাৎ বেঁচে যাওয়ার সব আনন্দ ফিকে হয়ে আসে তখনই যখন চোখে ভাসে দীপনের মুখ। অভিজিৎ-অনন্ত-নীলের ছবি যখন স্লাইড শো’র মত করে আমার সব চিন্তা ও মানসপটে দাগ কেটে কেটে প্রশ্ন আঁকে। ওদের জীবনও তো খুব সুন্দর ছিল, প্রয়োজনীয় ছিল। এবং গত দুই বছরে আরও যারা হত্যাকান্ড ও আক্রমনের শিকার হয়েছেন তাদের আত্মোৎসর্গের কথা মনে হলে আমার এই বোনাস জীবনটাকে অনেক বেশি দায়গ্রস্থ জীবন বলে মনে হয়। আপনারা জানেন সেদিন আমার সাথে আহত হয়েছিলেন লেখক রণদীপম বসু ও কবি তারেক রহিম। সেদিন যদি তারা সেসময় উপস্থিত না থাকতেন এবং আক্রমণকারীদের প্রতিরোধ না করতেন তাহলে আজ আমার এখানে দাড়িয়ে কথা বলার সুযোগ হতো না। তারেক রহিম এবং রণদীপম বসু এখনও তাদের শারীরিক আঘাতের ক্ষত ও মানসিক যন্ত্রনা নিয়ে দিন যাপন করছেন। রণদীপম বসু এক চরম নিরাপত্তাহীনতার মধ্যে বসবাস করছেন বাংলাদেশে।
আমি আপনাদেরকে আরও অবহিত করতে চাই তাদের সম্পর্কে, যেসব ব্লগার-লেখক বর্তমানে নিরাপত্তার কারণে বসবাস করছেন বাংলাদেশের পার্শ্ববর্তী কয়েকটি দেশে। এদের অনেকের ভিসার মেয়াদ উত্তির্ণ হয়ে গেছে। বাংলাদেশে এরা প্রত্যেকেই নিজ নিজ ক্ষেত্রে সুপ্রতিষ্ঠিত ছিলেন। কিন্তু বর্তমানে স্ত্রী-সন্তানসহ ভিন্ন দেশে দীর্ঘদিন ধরে চরম অনিশ্চিয়তা নিয়ে ও মানবেতর জীবন যাপন করতে বাধ্য হচ্ছে। আমি আপনাদের মাধ্যমে আন্তর্জাতিক সংস্থাসমুহের দৃষ্টি আকর্ষণ করে বলতে চাই, এই মানুষগুলোকে যেন একটা নিরাপদ আশ্রয়ের এবং স্বাভাবিক জীবন যাপন করার সুযোগ করে দেয়া হয়।

সুধীবৃন্দ,

আপনারা জানেন আমার উপর আক্রমনের দায় স্বীকার করে বিবৃতি দিয়েছিল আনসারুল্লা বাংলা টিম। অভিজিৎ হত্যাকান্ডের দায় স্বীকার করেছিল আল কায়েদা ভারতীয় উপমহাদেশ শাখা। এবং সম্প্রতি নৃশংস ঢাকা এটাকের দায় স্বীকার করেছে আইএসআইএস। এটা এখন প্রমাণিত সত্য যে, নাম অনেক হলেও এই ইসলামি আদর্শধারি সবগুলো সন্ত্রাসবাদী গোষ্টির শিকড় কোথাও না কোথাও গিয়ে একজায়গাতেই জড়ো হয়। আনসারুল্লা বাংলাটিম তাদের বিবৃতিতে বলেছিল, আমি যেহেতু ইসলাম বিরোধী বই প্রকাশ করি এবং নিজের লেখা,মত প্রকাশ ও অন্যান্যভাবে ইসলাম ধর্ম ও মতবাদের বিভিন্ন অসঙ্গতি নিয়ে সমালোচনাকারী লেখকদের পৃষ্টপোষকতা করি, সেহেতু তারা আমাকে হত্যা করার জন্য আক্রমণ করেছিল। বাংলাদেশে অনেকদিন ধরে, কয়েক দশক ধরে ইসলামের রাজনৈতিক দর্শন অনুযায়ি রাষ্ট্রব্যবস্থা পরিবর্তনের চেষ্টা চলছে। এই চেষ্টাকারীরা ইসলামী রাষ্ট্রের স্বপ্ন নিয়েই ১৯৭১এর মুক্তিযুদ্ধের সময় পাকিস্তানী বাহিনীকে সমর্থন করেছিল এবং ইতিহাসের জঘন্যতম গণহত্যা ও গণধর্ষনে প্রত্যক্ষভাবে সহায়তা করেছিল। মুক্তিযুদ্ধ পরবর্তি সময়ে জাতির জনকের হত্যাকান্ডের পর দুই দুইটা সামরিক শাসনের প্রতক্ষ – পরোক্ষ মদদে ও সহায়তায় এই শক্তি বাংলাদেশের রাজনীতিতে পুনঃপ্রত্যাবর্তনের সুযোগ পায় এবং ব্যবসা ও অন্যান্য সামাজিক -সাংস্কৃতিক কার্যক্রমে নিজেদের শক্তিশালী অবস্থান প্রতিষ্ঠা করে।
সাম্প্রতিক সময়ে বাংলাদেশে অনলাইন এক্টিভিজমের মাধ্যমে বিজ্ঞান শিক্ষা, বৈজ্ঞানিক চেতনা এবং মুক্তিযুদ্ধের আদর্শের প্রতি তরুণ সমাজের ব্যাপক আগ্রহ তৈরি হওয়ার প্রক্ষিতে এই প্রক্রিয়াকে ঠেকানোর জন্য ইসলামপন্থী রাজনৈতিক গোষ্ঠী নানানরকম কার্যক্রম শুরু করে। এর সাথে যুক্ত হয় যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচার প্রক্রিয়া। উল্লেখ্য যে, দীর্ঘ ৪০ বছর পর যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচার প্রক্রিয়া শুরু করার ব্যাপারে জনমত গঠন এবং সরকারকে বাধ্য করতে অনলাইন এক্টিভিস্টরা সবচেয়ে বড় ভুমিকা পালন করেছিল।

এই মূহুর্তে বাংলাদেশে বই প্রকাশের অপরাধে দীর্ঘদিন ধরে জেলে বন্দি অবস্থায় দিন যাপন করছেন ব-দ্বীপ প্রকাশনির প্রকাশক সত্তরোর্ধ সামসুজ্জোহা মানিক।

সুধীবৃন্দ

২০১৩থেকে শুরু হওয়া সাম্প্রতিক সময়ের ঘটনাবলী সম্পর্কে আপনারা সবাই কমবেশি জানেন। আমি এসবের বিশদ বর্ণনা দিয়ে আপনাদের ধৈর্যচ্যুতি ঘটাতে চাই না।

আসলে আমি এবং আমরা বলতে চাই একটা বর্বর সময়ের কিছু কার্যক্রম ও অলীক কথাবার্তার পুনরাবৃত্তির উপর ভিত্তি করে সভ্যতার চাকাকে উল্টো দিকে ঘুরিয়ে দেয়ার তৎপরতাকে আমরা বিনা চ্যালেন্জে কাজ করার সুযোগ দিতে পারি না। আমরা এই চ্যালেন্জটা করছি যুক্তি দিয়ে এবং লেখা তৈরির মাধ্যমে। কারো ইচ্ছে হলে এর জবাব পাল্টা যুক্তি দিয়ে লেখার মাধ্যমে দিতে পারেন।।
কিন্তু দয়া করে আমাকে, আমাদেরকে হত্যা করার ফতোয়া দিবেন না। চাপাতি হাতে, বন্দুক হাতে গুপ্ত ঘাতক পাঠাবেন না।

সুধীবৃন্দ,
যুক্তি এবং গঠনমূলক সমালোচনা প্রকাশ করার কাজটাই আমি করছিলাম। আর আমি আমার নিজের কিছু লেখাজোকা বিশেষ করে কবিতার ভালবাসায় মগ্ন হয়ে ছিলাম। মৌলবাদি শক্তি ঠিক জায়গাটাতেই আঘাত করেছে। দীপনের মৃত্যু এবং আমার আহত অবস্থায় দেশ ত্যাগ করার পর, এখন বাংলাদেশে কোন প্রকাশক সাহস করবে এই চ্যালেন্জগুলো, যৌক্তিক সমালোচনাগুলো প্রকাশ করতে? আমি হাসপাতালের বিছানাতে শুয়ে থাকা অবস্থায় একটা সাক্ষাৎকারে বলেছিলাম যে, আমি পিছু হটবো না। এই প্রত্যয়টা আমি এখনো ধারন করি। কারণ আমি জানি বই,টেক্সট একটা সমাজের মানসিকতার পরিবর্তনে অনেক বড় ভুমিকা পালন করে। আমি তাই ফিরে আসতে চাই পুনরায় বইয়ের জগতে, প্রকাশনার জগতে। যে কোন ধরনের বিকল্প মাধ্যমে হোক তা।প্রকাশনাকে আমি শুধু ব্যবসা মনে করি না, এটা আমার কাছে একধরনের সামাজিক-সাংস্কৃতিক আন্দলোনও বটে। আমি আশাবাদি বাংলাভাষাভাষি নতুন লেখকদের নতুন নতুন বিষয়ের লেখা পাঠকদের কাছে পোঁছে দিতে পারবো পুনরায়।

আধুনিক সভ্যতা ও সংস্কৃতির অন্যতম পীটস্থান লন্ডন। ঐতিহাসিক লন্ডনের এই ঐতিহাসিক বৃটিশ লাইব্রেরিতে দাঁড়িয়ে আপনাদের সামনে ফ্রিডম অব স্পিচ,ফ্রিডম অব এক্সপ্রেসন ও ফ্রিডম অব পাবলিকেশনের প্রতিনিধি হিসাবে কথা বলতে পেরে আমি অনেক গর্ব ও অনুভব করছি।
মুক্তচিন্তা ও মুক্তবুদ্ধির সঙ্গে থাকুন।
সবাইকে অনেক ধন্যবাদ।

Ahmedur Rashid Chowdhury (aka Tutul) was born in Sunamganj, Bangladesh on 28 March 1973.

In 1990 Tutul published and edited the first issue of his magazine Shuddhashar which soon became a platform for a group of young writers. In 2004 Tutul established a publication house also entitled Shuddhashar, with the slogan ‘To inspire, not to impress’. Shuddhashar became famous for publishing young and free-thinking writers and to date has published around 1000 books. In 2013 Shuddhashar was presented with the Shahid Munir Chowdhury award by the Bangla Academy.

Tutul is also a writer, whose work has been published in numerous newspapers, magazine, and blogs. He has also published a collection of poetry entitled Nil Boshe Shish Kate Thot.

On 31 October 2015 Tutul was attacked in his offices by Islamic fundamentalists and left critically injured. Following the attack, he is now living in Norway as one of the International Cities of Refuge Network’s guest writers, where he is continuing to write poetry and hopes to start an online magazine. He is also studying and researching the rise of terrorism in Bangladesh and other developing countries.

October 14, 2016
Translators of the world, unite!

International Translation Day kicked off last Friday for its fifth annual year at the British Library. It’s a spectacular day where translators from all walks of life can gather and get the raw, immediate advice that can only come from all being in a room together in person. (It’s also probably the only day in the year when you can walk up to somebody with a cheese and pickle sandwich in your hand and ask which languages they speak without looking weird.) International Translation Day is living proof that, no matter how different the languages we work with may be, through the wonderful and myriad complexities involved in translation – from the theory of translation itself to the publishing and marketing of translated works – we will always share a common ground.

Many of the issues and approaches in publishing translation were laid out in the opening plenary, where there was a cross-sectional dialogue between professionals working across the book publishing and literary industries. Sarah Braybrooke from Scribe gave a humorous and uplifting presentation on how to effectively publicise books ranging from Hans Fallada’s Nightmare in Berlin to Marie de Hennezel’s Sex After Sixty. She also had excellent advice for translators: approach publishers as if you were a publicist. Ana Pérez Galván from Hispabooks spoke about the tremendous number of books being published, which leaves little space for translation. For Rebecca Servadio who is a literary scout (a kind of ‘matchmaker for writers and publishers’) that issue transformed itself into a simple problem of time: how to choose from the 150 books coming in every month?

ITD was not just about sharing problems; it was also about being inspired by success. Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, translated by Deborah Smith, won the Man Booker International Prize for 2016. For the first time, the £50,000 prize was split evenly between writer and translator, increasing the validation and attention to translators around the world. Smith joined Charlotte Collins – whose translation of Robert Seethaler’s A Whole Life was shortlisted – for a discussion and masterclass aimed at early-/mid-career translators. Smith recounted how her decision to learn Korean came out of a desire to learn another language, and only happened relatively recently in her life. Smith and Collins both shared their translation process with the lucky audience, comparing previous and newer translations of the same passage in a ‘before and after’ format; it really highlighted the sheer amount of time and labour that went into making even the most minor of changes. When asked what the best advice Smith had for ‘how far’ you could stretch a translation, she recalled what somebody else had said to her once: ‘Until it breaks.’

After lunch (where the cheese and pickle sandwiches made their appearance), I joined English PEN’s informal meeting on translation and activism, hosted by Rebekah Murrell and Cat Lucas. We started off by laying down a fundamental point: translation – the breaking of cultural barriers, the championing of new voices, the radical reimagining of another’s thoughts – is, inherently, activism. What followed was a great discussion between experienced and emerging translators who were interested in activism both in the UK and abroad. Most of us agreed that there need to be stronger networks that link translators with activism, for example having ’emergency networks’ for translation in precarious situations. Other issues included the need to link students in educational centres and universities to the potential opportunities for activism outside of their own institutions. Clearly, there is a desire to combine translation and social justice in a bigger way, and this still needs to be developed in order to mobilise an effective means for change.

Although I am only a beginner in translation, I decided to attend a workshop aimed at experienced translators on ‘multilingual creativity’. In most cases I find it always beneficial to be around people who have a much more advanced knowledge and experience in your chosen field, and this time was no exception. The panel began with Simon Coffey from King’s College discussing translation in primary and secondary education, the need for more in-depth translation in classes, and the removal of certain languages from GCSEs. When one person asked why that had occurred, he replied, ‘Have you ever heard of Michael Gove?’ In the same panel, Ellen Jones, a PhD candidate at Queen Mary’s and criticism editor of Asymptote Journal gave a fascinating presentation on multilingualism in literature, with examples from Asymptote itself. Acclaimed poet and former editor of Poetry Review Fiona Sampson spoke about her experiences with her works being translated. There were a lot of energetic responses from translators in the audience, and one question in particular stuck in my mind: how to translate words in a foreign text that already appear in English, but denote a specific class or status to that particular culture?

In the closing plenary, one of International Translation Day’s quirkier traditions is to include a speaker who comes from outside the world of literary translation, but who holds important wisdom about how artistic meaning is conveyed. Previous speakers have included composers Helen Porter, Helen Chadwick and conductor Charles Hazelwood. This year, Dr Kyra Pollitt – who has spent more than two decades translating and interpreting between signing and speaking communities – gave the final presentation. Her doctoral thesis explored sign language poetry and the surprisingly difficult task of translating their visual grammar for those who do not understand sign language. A fascinating introduction to a new and evolving medium of Signart!

While it was not possible to attend every workshop and event, the chance for everyone to come together at the end of the day and share their experiences proved that what we learn about translation never happens in solitude or in a void. International Translation Day is still young, but it already has a dedicated cohort of people who have been coming for years, and who have travelled from all parts of the world. With translation on the rise, it’s not hard to imagine that International Translation Day 2017 will bring with it a host of a new issues to explore, more successes to celebrate, and a deeper commitment to translation as a vocation and an intellectual pursuit.

October 6, 2016
Why Kahramana?

Kahramana fascinates me. She is a character in the tale ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves’ from A Thousand And One Nights. Kahramana, Ali Baba’s slave girl, is the scheming one who protects Ali Baba from the band of 40 thieves and their leader. She moves the story along, takes action while life just happens to happy-go-lucky Ali Baba. It was Ali Baba’s luck that drew him to the treasure, it was luck that savvy Kahramana managed to hide his trace from the thieves and it was his luck again that Kahramana killed the 40 thieves and their leader in one night to save Ali Baba’s life. (I know, she’s cold blooded and brutal.)

What does Kahramana get in return for her loyalty? Well for starters the story is not called ‘Kahramana and the Forty Thieves’. As for her fate, Ali Baba rewards her for rescuing him by marrying her off to his son. Kahramana stays in Ali Baba’s household and so does the secret of the treasure.

So I’ve always viewed Kahramana a badass underdog. She’s smart, cruel and undermined.

When an immigration officer at Heathrow Airport waved a finger at me, called me a liar and told me I was to be deported, naturally I thought of Kahramana. I woke up the next morning in my room in London, after they released me with a throbbing headache, dry mouth, lump in my throat from holding back my tears all night. I was angry and humiliated when I wrote ‘Kahramana’. My Kahramana story was a sort of a ‘Fuck You’ to everyone. I had never been so angry in my life and I had never felt so small.

Comma Press had been waiting for over a year for me to contribute to the anthology but every time I sat down trying to write something I struggled. I’ve never written anything futuristic or science fiction, certainly not comedy. But that morning I got out of bed, sat to my laptop and feverishly typed away before I even got up to wash my face. When I was done with it I emailed it to Ra at Comma Press thinking ‘surely he’s going to hate it’, and ‘it’s going to offend him’. Ra was expecting Hitchcock and I gave him South Park. But for once in my life, I didn’t care. I was astonished when Ra wrote back telling me he loved ‘Kahramana’ and asked me to expand and tell him more.

In the story, I wanted to mock the way the humanitarian world handles migration. I’ve seen it often; the disillusioned European or American 20-something aid workers who are annoyed that refugees don’t appreciate the sacrifices they made to leave their ‘civilized’ homes and be in those camps and war zones; the aid workers who’ve become irreversibly desensitized to human suffering; the ones who think every Syrian, Iraqi or Afghan refugee – and even a non-refugee – is a saint, a victim who needs to be cuddled. ‘Kahramana’ exposes and exploits that.

I also wanted to joke about political propaganda, something every Iraqi was force-fed since infanthood. When I listen to ISIS babble on their radio station or when I follow their statements on social media, I am struck by the resemblance to war statements on Iraq’s national television station during the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. By the end of the long stretches of pompous rhetoric, I could never tell if they were winning or losing. And as in all totalitarian systems, everything in Wadi Hashish, Kahramana’s birthplace, was mandatory. It’s mandatory to cheer in support of the government’s decision to wage wars, to march to your doom when you don’t understand or don’t believe in what you’re fighting for, and to sing and dance and throw rose petals at a dictator even if he’s sent your entire family to the gallows. Every Arab country, to some degree, has an element of this.

Human life and suffering was as insignificant a side-effect during the 1980s Iraq-Iran war as it is in Iraq and the region today – all for the greater cause, of course! Kahramana is casual about other people’s lives. To her they’re ants behind the T-walls, waves of migrants trying to get in on the sunny side. Mullah Hashish (the leader of the radical Wadi Hashish people), NATO (in trying to obliterate Wadi Hashish and its leader) and the aid workers (shaving heads and tagging the people fleeing Wadi Hashish) all have as little regard for human life as Kahramana. The only people who do care are the ‘Kuchan Sulemani’ activists – and they are burnt out and frazzled the whole time.

So to sum up, Kahramana is my way of giving people in the gutter a chance to laugh at their do-gooders, clergy and oppressors. Kahramana is evil and manipulative, and I just wanted to unleash her onto the UN employee who pointed at Syrian aid workers, asked them to stand up while we all sat down, and said ‘let’s clap for the refugees’; onto babbling buffoons who insist that if I am ‘good’, then poof! wars will end and there will be unicorns with wings. I wanted to unleash her as I sat there at Heathrow Airport, resenting people speeding away and resenting myself for being there, confined, stripped of my passport, angrily and anxiously waiting to be deported. Kahramana is all of my pent-up frustrations. If not for her I’d burst in anger all over my keyboard.

To the Kahramanas of the world: cheers!

Iraq+100 will be published on 27 October 2016.

Award-winning author and Iraq+100 editor Hassan Blasim and a number of the book’s contributors will appear at an event at Southbank Centre as part of the London Literature Festival on Saturday 15 October. Find out more and book tickets.

Photo: Kahramana Statue, Baghdad, UNAMI/Sarmad Al-Safy on the United Nations Information Centre Flickr stream, creative commons licence.

September 29, 2016
How I wrote The Winterlings
Translated from the Spanish by Samuel Rutter.

Let me begin with a story. In the summer of 2012, I was travelling along a back road in Spain with my husband (the precise location doesn’t matter) when suddenly, I saw something that made me jump in the passenger seat. My husband swerved wildly and we almost had an accident. “What’s wrong with you?!” he exclaimed. I made him go back. “What did you see?” I made him stop in front of a road sign; a sign that said ‘Las Inviernas’, or the Winterlings, in English. “So what?” he said, “This is why you scared the living daylights out of me and made me turn around? It’s a village, who cares? It’s not like you saw a dead body lying by the side of the road!”

No, I didn’t see a dead body lying by the side of the road, but just like that, by pure chance (we had just dropped off our son at a camping ground) I came across the Winterlings.

I have to tell you something else: we writers do not choose our characters. Our characters choose us.

The seed, the tiny embryo of a novel began to gestate in my head right in that moment. The Winterlings. A person in that situation might have seen any old thing – in fact I think my husband saw nothing more than a road sign, which of course is perfectly logical. I immediately saw three things. First, the title of a novel. Or rather, the keyhole into the door of a novel. Second, I saw two women from a village, one pretty and the other ugly. And third, I saw the winter. The winter and the Galician fog.

I know that this story is difficult to believe, but I can assure you that it is absolutely true. And I also know that if any writer is reading this story, they will immediately identify with it. Because fiction is full of apparently magical moments like these. The strangest things happen to us during the writing process.

And so it wasn’t I who chose the Winterlings, but they who chose me. It occurred just like a dream, which we have no power of choice over either. It’s clear that dreams are born in a deep layer of the subconscious. They are the result of that magma of lived experiences, thoughts, people that we have seen or remembered throughout the day, fears, and obsessions, and secrets. In general, it has to do with the unexplored territory of ourselves (Jung called it ‘the shadow’) that we are afraid to uncover. Because we write to discover what we didn’t know that we already knew; this is why we’re often surprised at what we have written and we ask ourselves where it came from. I suspect that’s why such extraordinary coincidences occur. Our subconscious knows much more than we know ourselves.

And so in reality, when I saw that road sign for the Winterlings, those two women, the fog and the winter, they were already a part of me. I had a huge tangle of marvellous stories that I had heard as a little girl in my grandmother’s house, and I didn’t know how to arrange them in a text. My subconscious drew my attention to that sign and made me stop in the middle of the road, so that I’d have at least a title and two protagonists. So that I could start writing once and for all.

As you immerse yourself in the reading of The Winterlings you can see that it’s clearly a narrative drawn from the oral tradition. Through oral testimony I thought that I could better capture the cultural spirit and the magical quality that is so characteristic of Galician villages. In those stories one finds a legacy of the premonitions, visions and apparitions that come from superstition or religion.

So many of the things that appear in the novel are things I heard or saw as a little girl in Galicia, the place where I was born and where my father’s entire family comes from. I believe that the landscape of childhood is very important when it comes to writing, because that’s where the tension between the real and the imaginary is first forged; it is a tension that stays with an adult forever. Torrente Ballester, one of the most renowned Galician writers, used to say that he considered himself cultured not because of what he had learned at university but for what he had heard in his grandmother’s house. And for García Márquez, Macondo isn’t a place but the past, which also takes place in his grandparents’ old house, in Aracataca. Truly magical things happened there, things that justified the author when he said that in his opinion what he wrote was not magic realism, but realism pure and simple.

In the case of The Winterlings, the oral narration is included not only because the stories glimpsed in the novel are real, but also because the characters tell each other these stories around the hearth, or by the ‘lareira’ as we say in Galicia. All those stories that I heard from my grandmother are stories without a fixed structure, where what matters most is the psychology of the character. For example, there is the story of the priest who goes up the mountain every day, to administer the last rites to an old lady who never quite dies. Then finally one day, completely exhausted, he explodes: “It’s time to kick the bucket, woman! Christ, that’s what we’re here for!” Or the story of the boy who was breastfed until he was seven years old, and who would bite his mother’s nipples. Or the story about the country teacher. In the 1950s all the Galician country teachers without formal qualifications, who were paid in measures or ‘ferrados’ of corn or rye (that’s why we call them maestros de ferrado), were made to sit a test, an official exam in La Coruña, and that caused quite a stir at the time. But all these stories needed something to connect them, and finding Dolores and Saladina was what helped me the most.

The writer of fiction always seeks to reveal a mystery. She might even be revealing it to herself at the same time that she reveals it to others. Rather than seeking the origins of the novel, what I seek is a mystery that is unknown even to me. It is my characters who reveal everything. Just as I began to write The Winterlings, they revealed their secret to me. But there was more, and I simply felt that I had to keep writing because those two women couldn’t stop telling me things. For example, I didn’t know about Dolores’s husband’s murder, the man who fished for squid and cod, until a few paragraphs before she did it (or they did it). When I discovered that was going to happen, I understood it to be inevitable and that the murder was the cause of many other things. The murder provokes a sense of shock in the reader (or laughter or whatever sensation) because it provoked the same thing in me as a writer. It seems a bit strange for me to say this, because in the end I am the author, that is to say, the God of this little universe, which in theory I can make and unmake at my whim. Well, it’s not quite like that. After some time, I have arrived at the conclusion that one must begin writing so that one’s characters acquire autonomy and begin to make decisions for themselves.
Find out more about The Winterlings.

Cristina Sánchez-Andrade will be touring the UK in October. Find out more and book tickets:
September 22, 2016
Write, write, otherwise we are lost

A friend of mine is currently visiting me from Turkey. We of course have long discussions about the state of our native country, where he lives and where I have never lived longer than two months in a row. I write and translate from that privileged position of being both an insider and an outsider. I have the advantage of being ‘in-between’. While I am physically in the heart of Amsterdam, my heart and mind keep going to Turkey. Back and forth, back and forth without ever slowing down the pace. As we sip some locally brewed beer, my friend tells me all the stories of ‘o gece’ – ‘that night’. I can hear the new trauma that has now entered Turkey’s people’s lives through the trembling of his voice as he recounts moments of that night and its aftermath.

Rather than recounting these stories you have probably already read or seen on various mainstream, independent and social media, I’d like to focus on something else he told me. As he was explaining how difficult things were getting in ordinary people’s daily lives –friends losing their jobs, the unbearable Istanbul commutes, the lack of nature and quiet in the city, the tensions among people, the growing hatred against the Kurds, the antipathy against the plight of Syrian refugees… I asked him if he ever thought of leaving Turkey. His answer was quick: no. He explained that he wouldn’t have much hope of finding work outside of Turkey, especially since was older than 30; he would need at least a mid-senior job to be able to get a visa. But then his face got lighter, ‘I have another dream,’ he said. ‘If I can find enough friends to do it with me, I would like to move to a rural area, somewhere in a nice village, and start a commune.’

I stopped for a few seconds to digest that idea. It was a possibility I would never have considered – the first thing I imagined he would like to do is leave the country and get as far away as possible. His idea made me think about literature, the possibilities of invention and creativity, and how important it is to keep and create spaces for imagination, especially when your environment is literally killing you and these spaces day after day, with matters getting worse with each word that I type.

We have seen many crises and wars across our human history, and creativity has always continued to flourish in different ways. Literature has been a space for dissent and resistance. I myself have always been a strong advocate for the role of translation as an act of resistance. All the work I do is around writers and works that defy the norm and those in power. Literature for me can also be a place of hope, and that feeling has been amplified by my friend’s wish to start a commune in a Turkish village. Yes, he wants to escape the turmoil, the worries and the sorrows, but on the other hand he wishes to create something new, and he doesn’t want to do it alone. He needs other people to build this new space with him. It’s a collaborative act that will allow a group of people to live in peace, on their own land, and to bring good to the community among which they will settle.

I believe literature needs to be such a place: where you can allow writers and readers to escape, to invent, to live multiple lives and stories. You need those spaces where you don’t only deal with current issues and politics – these will be part of many background stories anyway. You want writers and artists to be able to go beyond reality and create these places of their imagination, so they can inspire people locally and internationally. That’s why you absolutely need those stories translated. You cannot allow only the voices that deal with political issues to be heard in English. I remember Belgian historian and writer David Van Reybrouck once said, ‘Democracy needs imagination.’ Like him, I believe that this need exists, not just in countries such as Turkey where democracy and the rule of law are close to extinction, but in other places – especially across Europe where we tend to take our basic rights for granted.

By creating a strong literature that will be translated, we will move away from identity politics, and we will stop asking Turkish writers to comment solely on their country’s political situation. Of course they probably care – indeed, some are in prison because they care. This is the case of Aslı Erdoğan, who has been detained since 16 August, and others such as linguist, translator and writer Necmiye Alpay. Why? Because they believe in peace, social justice and basic human rights. That’s how bad things are for people in Turkey. Not just for intellectuals and artists, but for every single citizen who dares to voice an opinion against the current power. So, obviously, we need more than just good literature. That will not solve the current war against the Kurds – many Kurdish cities in Turkey are in ruins, as my friend dreaming of his commune also told me. But I strongly believe that literature, and other artistic disciplines, can give hope and create spaces for all of us to foster empathy, and in turn, build a better world.

The late Pina Bausch famously said, ‘Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost.’ I don’t think I am too naïve when I choose ‘Write, write, otherwise we are lost’ as a title for this piece. And let me tell you why I actually don’t have a choice but to remain optimistic: look at this drawing by comics artist Özge Samancı (I urge you to read her graphic novel Dare to Disappoint, in which she describes her own post-1980 coup childhood and teenage years):

If Aslı Erdogan, all the way from her prison cell, can say, ‘We exist, we are here and we are writing,’ there only is but one response someone in such a privileged position as myself can give: ‘I hear you, I read you and I will translate you.’

Image via Özge Samancı’s Facebook page.

On Monday 19 September, Canan Marasligil will appear alongside journalist-author Ece Temelkuran, novelist Burhan Sönmez and English PEN President Maureen Freely to discuss what it means to be a writer in Turkey today: PEN Atlas presents: The view from Turkey.

Visit Canan Marasligil’s website: http://www.cananmarasligil.net/

Developed and run by Canan Marasligil, City in Translation is a project exploring languages in urban spaces, focusing on individual cities and their specificity with regard to language diversity.

Find out more about English PEN’s work campaigning for the rights of writers and journalists in Turkey.

September 15, 2016
The hairy adolescent

Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein.

I receive an invitation to go to Capri, to a literary festival. It consists of a series of conversations between Anglophone and Italian writers, and takes place in a small piazza overlooking the sea, with a view of the rock formations known as the Faraglioni. Every year the festival is devoted to a subject that the writers will discuss with one another. This year, it is ‘Winners and Losers’. Before the festival, the participants are asked to write a piece on this subject, to be printed in a bilingual catalogue. Since I’m an Anglophone writer, the assumption is that I will write this piece in English, and it will then be translated into Italian. But, having been in Italy for almost a year, I am now so gripped by the language that I try to avoid English as much as possible. I write the piece in Italian, and so an English translation is needed.

I would be the natural translator, but I don’t have the least desire to do it. I’m not interested, at the moment, in going back. In fact, it frightens me. When I express my reluctance to my husband, he says, ‘You should do the translation yourself. Better you than someone else, otherwise it won’t be under your control.’ Following this advice, and having a sense of duty, I decide, in the end, to translate myself.

I imagined that it would be an easy job. A descent rather than an ascent. Instead, I’m astonished at how demanding I find it. When I write in Italian, I think in Italian; to translate into English, I have to wake up another part of my brain. I don’t like the sensation at all. I feel alienated. As if I’d run into a boyfriend I’d tired of, someone I’d left years earlier. He no longer appeals to me.

On the one hand, the translation doesn’t sound good. It seems insipid, dull, incapable of expressing my new thoughts. On the other, I’m overwhelmed by the richness, the power, the suppleness of my English. Suddenly thousands of words, nuances, come to me. A solid grammar, no hesitations. I don’t need a dictionary; in English I don’t have to clamber uphill. This old knowledge, this skill, depresses me. Who is this writer, so well equipped? I don’t recognize her.

I feel unfaithful. I fear that, against my will, reluctantly, I have betrayed Italian.

Compared with Italian, English seems overbearing, domineering, full of itself. I have the impression that English has been in captivity and, having just been released, is furious. Probably, feeling neglected for almost a year, it’s angry at me. The two languages confront each other on the desk, but the winner is already more than obvious. The translation is devouring, dismantling the original text. I’m struck by how this bloody struggle exemplifies the theme of the festival, the very subject of the piece.

I want to protect my Italian, which I hold in my arms like a newborn. I want to coddle it. It has to sleep, eat, grow. Compared with Italian, my English is like a hairy, smelly teenager. Go away, I want to say to it. Don’t bother your little brother, he’s sleeping. He’s not a creature who can run around and play. He’s not a carefree, strong, independent kid like you.

Now I realize that I’m describing my relationship with Italian in another way, that I’ve introduced a new metaphor. Until now the analogy had always been romantic: a falling in love. Now, as I translate myself, I feel like the mother of two children. I notice that I’ve changed my relation to the language, but maybe this change reflects a development, a natural journey. One type of love follows the other; from a passionate coupling, ideally, a new generation is born. I feel an emotion even more intense, more pure, more transcendent for my children. Maternity is a visceral bond, an unconditional love, a devotion that goes beyond attraction and compatibility.

As I translate this short piece into English, I feel split in two. I can’t deal with the tension; I’m incapable of moving like an acrobat between the languages. I’m conscious of the unpleasant sensation of having to be two different people at the same time— an existential condition that has marked my life. I know that Beckett translated himself from French into English. That would be impossible for me, because my Italian remains much weaker. They aren’t equal, these two brothers, and the little one is my favourite. Toward Italian, I’m not neutral.

As for the translation into English, I consider it an obligation, nothing more. I find it a centripetal process. No mystery, no discovery, no encounter with something outside myself.

I have to admit, though, that traveling between the two versions turns out to be useful. In the end, the effort of translation makes the Italian version clearer, more articulate. It serves the writing, even if it upsets the writer.

I think that translating is the most profound, most intimate way of reading. A translation is a wonderful, dynamic encounter between two languages, two texts, two writers. It entails a doubling, a renewal. I used to love translating from Latin, from ancient Greek, from Bengali. It was a way of getting close to different languages, of feeling connected to writers very distant from me in space and time. Translating myself, from a language in which I am still a novice, isn’t the same thing. I’ve struggled to complete the text in Italian, and I feel I’ve just arrived, tired but thrilled. I want to stop, orient myself. The re-entry is too soon, it hurts. It seems like a defeat, a regression. It seems destructive rather than creative, almost a suicide.

In Capri, I make my presentation in Italian. I read aloud my piece on winners and losers. I see the English text in blue on the left- hand side of the page, the Italian, in black, on the right. The English is mute, fairly tranquil. Printed and bound, the brothers tolerate each other. They are, at least for the moment, at peace.

After the reading I have a conversation with two Italian writers. Sitting next to us is an interpreter who is to translate what we’re saying into English. After a few sentences I stop, and she speaks. This echo in English is incredible, fantastic: both a circle completed and a total reversal. I’m astonished, moved. I think of Mantua thirteen years ago, and of the interpreter without whom I couldn’t express myself in Italian in public. I didn’t think I would ever reach this goal.

Listening to my interpreter, I trust my Italian for the first time. Although he’ll remain forever the younger brother, the little guy pulls through. Thanks to the firstborn, I can see the second – listen to him, even admire him a little.

Jhumpa Lahiri is the author of four works of fiction: Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, and The Lowland. She has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize; the PEN/Hemingway Award; the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award; the Premio Gregor von Rezzori; the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature; a 2014 National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama; and the Premio Internazionale Viareggio- Versilia, for In altre parole.

Photo by Marco Delogu.

Read the original Italian version of this extract on PEN Atlas: L’adolescente peloso.

Find out more about In Other Words here.

International Translation Day is the biggest annual event for the translation community. This year’s vibrant day-long programme includes seminars on women writers in translation, multilingualism, the state of translation in higher education, alternative routes to publication and translating for the stage. Find out more and buy tickets here.

Ann Goldstein is visiting the UK in October for a series of events discussing her translation of Elena Ferrante. Ann will appear in Dublin on 11 October, in Leeds on 13 October, in London on 14 October and in Cheltenham on 15 October.

September 8, 2016