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Novels & short stories in languages of the region Asia-Pacific

Curtain up for book titles ready for promising translations! Our pitching sessions aim at connecting key partners of translation projects: Publishers in the region Asia-Pacific and in German speaking countries as well as translators. Just browse through book titles that have been pitched in one of our sessions – and find a match for your publishing program. We are happy to provide you with more details and to connect you.

Novels & short stories in languages of the region Asia-Pacific

Curtain up for book titles ready for promising translations! Our pitching sessions aim at connecting key partners of translation projects: Publishers in the region Asia-Pacific and in German speaking countries as well as translators. Just browse through book titles that have been pitched in one of our sessions – and find a match for your publishing program. We are happy to provide you with more details and to connect you.

Pitched Titles

Curtain up for book titles ready for promising translations! Our pitching sessions aim at connecting key partners of translation projects: Publishers in the region Asia-Pacific and in German speaking countries as well as translators. Just browse through book titles that have been pitched in one of our sessions – and find a match for your publishing program. We are happy to provide you with more details and to connect you.

Pitched Titles

Curtain up for book titles ready for promising translations! Our pitching sessions aim at connecting key partners of translation projects: Publishers in the region Asia-Pacific and in German speaking countries as well as translators. Just browse through book titles that have been pitched in one of our sessions – and find a match for your publishing program. We are happy to provide you with more details and to connect you.

2019

Marjin Kiri

Orang-Orang Oetimu [Die Leute von Oetimu]

Author: Felix K. Nesi

About the author:
Felix K. Nesi was born in 1988 in Nesam-Insana, a village located in the western part of the island of Timor, which is part of the southernmost province of Indonesia's East Nusa-Tenggara (or East Lesser Sunda Islands). After attending high school he studied at the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Malang Merdeka (Java).
Felix Nesi writes poetry, short stories and essays. As part of the Makassar International Writers Festival (MWIF) 2015, he was honored as "Emerging Writer".
Felix K. Nesi is a co-founder of Komunitas Leko (2017), a literacy community, and of the Buku Fanu bookstore in Kupang, Timor.

About the book:
Publisher: CV Marjin Kiri, Indonesien
220 pages
ISBN: 978-979-1260-89-3
Original language: Indonesian

In 2018, the manuscript of the novel Orang-Orang Oetimu won the annual Jakarta Arts Council Novel Competition as Best Novel of the Year. The novel was nominated in the category „prose“ for Indonesia's most prestigious literary award, Kusala Sastra Khatulistiwa, in 2021.
Also in 2021, Orang-Orang Oetimu was awarded the Literature Prize of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia in the novel category. 

An ethnographical, political and historical novel that is fun to read
The novel is set in Oetimu, a fictional village located in the inland of West Timor.
The history of West Timor, home of Felix Nesis, is inextricably intertwined with the history of Timor-Leste.
After the Carnation Revolution in Portugal in 1974, East Timor was to be decolonized after more than 400 years of Portuguese rule and was supposed to gain independence in 1975. During the decolonization phase, a civil war broke out and East Timor was occupied by Indonesia in 1975. An estimated 130 to 180,000 people lost their lives during the Indonesian occupation from 1975 to 1999. At the independence referendum in East Timor on August 30, 1999, the overwhelming majority of the population voted for full independence. The Indonesian military and pro-Indonesian militias then carried out a punitive action in which 1200 to 1500 people were killed and 70% of the population were displaced, houses and infrastructure were destroyed. This was followed by the deployment of the multinational peacekeeping force INTERFET. The United Nations maintained an interim administration that granted Timor-Leste independence on May 20, 2002, following the referendum result.

Felix Nesis' novel spans a time frame from 1974 to 1998. The story begins on the evening of the 1998 World Cup final. Oetimu's male population is gripped by football fever and the young village policeman Ipi invites them to watch the game together at the police station. At the same time, a killer squad attacks the house and wife and children of Martin Kabiti, a former officer in the Indonesian army and one of the football fanatics at Ipi's office.
The second chapter catapults the reader to 1974 and Lisbon. The temporally and geographically other end of the novel. Based on the story of Julio and his family, Nesi draws the beginning of Timor's decolonization process.

In flashbacks and flashforwards Nesi draws the biographies and fates of his characters against the background of the violant history of Timor, until the reader finally returns to the evening of the World Cup final and the murderous attack with which the book begins. This completes the cyclical narrative structure that reflects the cycles of violence in Timor and Indonesia.
Through the biographies of some of the characters, the reader touches on the Japanese occupation during World War II, the struggle for the country's independence, Suharto's takeover of power in 1965, the massacres of leftists, especially in 1965 and 1966, and the bloody battles and massacres in Timor .

The way in which Felix Nesi brings together numerous narrative threads within the cyclical plot framework over two and a half decades is remarkable. He uses elements of the oral tradition and storytelling of Timor. Many loose plot strands are woven together, some open-ended, elements of magical realism are almost casually incorporated by the author.
The novel is bursting with satirical wit, subtle humor and sometimes comedic interludes. At many points, Nesis' narration inevitably makes the reader laugh. Extremely imaginative story. Nesi is able to merge the juxtaposition of comic scenes and violent events in a literary astonishingly light-footed way.
Nesi brings a fresh literary voice to postcolonial debates.
A grandiose story about the interdependence of politics and church, which takes place far from the main island of Java and the center of power Jakarta, and which takes a fresh look at the interdependencies of local life with national and international interests and lets them appear in a new light.

Translator Sabine Müller presented the book in our pitching session on 3 March 2022.

For further information please contact:

Sabine Müller
On this website
E-Mail: [email protected]
Mob.: +49(0)1758189743

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2021

Allen & Unwin Australia

Scary Monsters

Author: Michelle de Kretser

About the author:
Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. Educated in Melbourne and Paris, Michelle has worked as a university tutor, an editor and a book reviewer.
She is the author of The Rose Grower, The Hamilton Case, which won the Commonwealth Prize (SE Asia and Pacific region) and the UK Encore Prize, and The Lost Dog, which was widely praised by writers such as AS Byatt, Hilary Mantel and William Boyd and won a swag of awards, including: the 2008 NSW Premier's Book of the Year Award and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the 2008 ALS Gold Medal. The Lost Dog was also shortlisted for the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, the Western Australian Premier's Australia-Asia Literary Award, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Asia-Pacific Region) and Orange Prize's Shadow Youth Panel. It was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction. Questions of Travel was the winner of the 2013 Miles Franklin Award, the Prime Ministers Literary Award for Fiction and the Western Australian Premier's Prize and Award for Fiction.

About the book:
Original publication: Allen & Unwin Australia, 83 Alexander Street, Crows Nest, NSW 2065, Australia. 
ISBN: B09862DHPF 
2021 
307 pages
Sold licenses: 
UK: Allen & Unwin 
USA: Catapult 
Israel: Xargol

Abstract:
Michelle de Kretser’s slyly intelligent sixth novel pairs two first-person narratives. One takes place in a dystopian near-future Melbourne, where Lyle, an immigrant father of two, is employed by a sinister government department in near-future Australia to write “evaluations” nominating fellow migrants for arrest and repatriation. 
The other half of the book is set in 1981 and follows Lili, a 22-year-old Australian working as a teaching assistant in France. Lili's family migrated to Australia from Asia when she was a teenager. Now, in the 1980s, she's teaching in the south of France. She makes friends, observes the treatment handed out to North African immigrants and is creeped out by her downstairs neighbour. 
It’s typical of De Kretser’s sophistication that she leaves the link between these narratives entirely up to you – even the order in which they are to be read is left to the individual reader, given the book’s reversible design.
Michelle de Kretser's electrifying take on scary monsters turns the novel upside down - just as migration has upended her characters' lives.
Three scary monsters - racism, misogyny and ageism - roam through this mesmerising novel. With this scathingly funny and profound book, Michelle de Kretser has made something thrilling and new.

Excerpt: 
That was how Alan became part of our family. Back when Chanel worked at the Other Corporation, Erin was her manager and a reliable guide on how things were done here. Erin said that it was quite okay to feed Alan in the morning and leave him outside to amuse himself in the yard. ‘It’s called Set and Forget,’ she told Chanel. Alan didn’t bark much as we headed off for the day, leaving him alone – he was used to that way of life.
Then Ivy joined our household. Ivy is my mother, and she had Alan inside all the time. I tried to explain about Set and Forget. The news was on, and a government hatespokesperson was telling us why it was necessary to detail asylum-seeking queue-jumpers on an offshore island forever. Ivy said, ‘I suppose that’s called Set and Forget too.’
But I’ve strayed from the subject of Alan’s last day. My mind has started showing this tendency to play tricks. There was that time a bulb went, and when I fetched a new one from the cupboard it was labelled ‘Worm White’. How strange, I thought, before realising that it was ‘Warm White’. It must be overwork – I stay later and later at the Department these days.
Naturally we said nothing to Mel and Sydney about what we had to do. My flexi-day came, a winter morning with a vinyl sheen. The children were at school, so that left Ivy. I found her sitting on the sunny side of the patio with her face turned to the sky. She had a tube of Factor 73 beside her and Alan on her lap.

Translator Anke Caroline Burger presented the book in our pitching session on 3 March 2022.

For further information please contact:

Anke Caroline Burger
Literature Translator
On this website
Germany: Schmollerplatz 29, 12435 Berlin,
Mobil: 0049-179-7008527
Canada: 5-7081 Rue Waverly, Montreal, QC H2S 3J1,
Tel: 001-514-867-3344
E-Mail: [email protected]
Internet: www.ankeburger.de

Please note: Translation Fund for Literature by the Australian Government
International publishers may apply for a contribution towards the translation of Australian works by living authors of creative writing such as fiction, poetry, writing for children and young people, graphic novels, and narrative non-fiction (defined as autobiography, biography, essays, histories, literary criticism, or analytical prose).  The majority of funding must be used to pay the rights holder and translator.

About the program

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2016

Western Australia Publishing

The Permanent Resident

Author: Roanna Gonsalves

About the author:
Roanna Gonsalves is the award-winning author of the acclaimed collection of short fiction The Permanent Resident published in India as Sunita De Souza Goes To Sydney. Her writing has been compared to the work of Alice Munro and Jhumpa Lahiri. Her four-part radio series On the tip of a billion tongues, commissioned and broadcast by ABC RN’s Earshot program, is an acerbic portrayal of contemporary India through its multilingual writers. She works as a Lecturer in Creative Writing at UNSW Sydney.
Website:
Roanna Gonsalves

About the book:
Roanna Gonsalves short story collection has appeared in two editions. 
1) As Permanent Resident with University of Western Australia Publishing (Australia) 
ISBN: 9781742589022 
280 pages
Publisher's website: Western Australia Publishing
2) And as Sunita de Souza Goes to Sydney with Speaking Tiger (India) 
ISBN: 9789387693104 
296 pages
Publisher's website: Speaking Tiger

Book content:
A woman who can’t swim wades into a suburban pool. An Indian family sits down to an Australian Christmas dinner. A single mother’s offer to coach her son’s soccer team leads to an unexpected encounter. A recent migrant considers taking the fall for a second generation ‘friend’. A wife refuses to let her husband look at her phone. An international student gets off a train at night.
Roanna Gonsalves’ short stories unearth the aspirations, ambivalence and guilt laced through the lives of 21st century immigrants, steering through clashes of cultures, trials of faith, and squalls of racism. Sometimes heart-wrenching, sometimes playful, they cut to the truth of what it means to be a modern outsider. Since its publication, Sunita De Souza Goes to Sydney has quickly found a place on a number of lists of must-read books, and has been praised by critics for its playfulness with language, its boldness and its fresh voice.
Reviews 

Translator Dr Rebecca DeWald presented the book in our pitching session on 3 March 2022.
Roanna Gonsalves brings a warmth and energy to the topic of (forced and chosen) migration that is both enlightening and heart-wrenching. The protagonists of her short stories are all Indian migrants (from the Catholic provinces of Bombay and Goa) to Australia, and more often than not women finding their way, and strength, in their new lives abroad. While this may sound like a narrowly defined group to the outside (white, European or American) reader, Gonsalves gives a voice (or, rather, multiple, varied voices) to a sub-group of migrants to Australia that are all-too-easily lumped together into one seemingly homogenous “migrant experience”. We warm to her characters, and the subtle and fragile bonds they form with their fellow humans – and are just as shocked by their betrayal of each other, and touched when they find love in the most hopeless of situations. Over all of this looms the ever-present holy grail of “permanent residency”, the carrot dangled in front of new arrivals; a bureaucratic set of rules influencing their life choices and decisions and curtailing their freedom.

For further information please contact:

Dr Rebecca DeWald
On this website
E-Mail: [email protected]
Dr Rebecca DeWald
E-Mail: [email protected]
Website: rebeccadewaldtranslation.wordpress.com/
LinkedIn
Twitter

Please note: Translation Fund for Literature by the Australian Government
International publishers may apply for a contribution towards the translation of Australian works by living authors of creative writing such as fiction, poetry, writing for children and young people, graphic novels, and narrative non-fiction (defined as autobiography, biography, essays, histories, literary criticism, or analytical prose).  The majority of funding must be used to pay the rights holder and translator.

About the program

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2007

Chûô Kôron Shinsha

Yôkame no semi [The Cicada of the Eighth Day]

Author: Mitsuko KAKUTA

About the author:
Mitsuko KAKUTA, born in 1967, authored more than 40 books (novels, short stories, essays) and is considered one of Japan’s most popular authors.
In the Japanese literary scene he is regarded as a representative author of so-called freeter novels, a genre that stands for socially critical contemporary literature.
The author has been awarded several prizes: Noma Literary New Face Prize, Chûô Kôron Literary Prize, Naoki Prize, et al.
English translations of some of his works:
The Eighth Day, Kodansha International Ltd. 2010, translated by Margaret Mitsutani
English translations of her short stories in the Asia Literary Review and Japanese Literature Today
Mama’s Boy: A Short Story, Kindle Single (2015)
Good Luck Bag: A Short Story, Kindle Single (2015)
Moving the Birds: A Short Story, Kindle Single (2015)
Pieces: : A Short Story, Kindle Single (2015)

About the book:
Translation of the title: The Cicada of the Eighth Day
Original language: Japanese
346 pages
ISBN978-4-12-003816-7 C0093
Publisher: Chûô Kôron Shinsha in Japan
Initially published in 2005 as a series in the daily newspaper Yomiuri Shinbun
Published as a book in 2007
English translation: The Eighth Day, Kodansha International Ltd. 2010, translated by Margaret Mitsutani
Has been made into a television drama series (2010) and a film (2011)

Subject:
This novel focuses on a child kidnapping and the development of the abducted girl up to the age of 21. What is special about this novel is that it not only deals with a child abduction and an extremely exciting four-year period when the young woman is on the run with the little girl, but also with the question of how a kidnapped child develops after she returns to her parents and the effects this experience can have on the inner psyche of both the abducted girl and her parents. A second central set of themes is the psychological distress and emotional turmoil faced by a young woman who loves a married man — who promises to marry her, but in reality does not want to and cannot separate from his family — as well as the deep inner torment she goes through when she becomes pregnant and has to make a decision.  
Prologue:
An omniscient narrator tells the story, but also the thoughts of one protagonist, Kiwako, are described in detail.
Kiwako, a young woman and an ordinary office worker, is in love with a married man. An unwanted abortion causes her to snap. She invades the apartment of her lover since she wants to have a look at his baby. But the baby, Erina, is so sweet that Kiwako suddenly decides to take it with her.
Chapter 1: First-person narrator: Kiwako tells her story in a diary-like way.
Kiwako gives the baby the name Kaoru and hides in different places, e. g. at a friend’s house, at an old woman’s house and in an all-female religious commune, a kind of sect, where they live for a long time. But when the commune is in danger of being exposed, they flee again and go to the little island of Shôdoshima in the Japanese Inland Sea. Kiwako takes loving care of Kaoru during the whole four years of her escape. So the reader feels more and more sympathy for her and finally hopes that she is not discovered. But when Kaoru is about four years old, they are discovered in the end. Kiwako is arrested and Kaoru returns to her family.
Chapter 2: First-person narrator: Kaoru=Erina
At the beginning of the second chapter, Erina is a second-year student. She knows that she was kidnapped as a baby, but her parents did not tell her details. She informed herself by reading books about the abduction. Her mother cannot cope with the situation and often leaves Erina and her sister to their own devices. Erina who experienced much love from Kiwako now grows up without love. But everyone blames Kiwako for this sad situation. Which is why Erina condemns Kiwako. But when she herself gets pregnant by a married man her attitude gradually changes.
Without becoming sentimental in any way, this novel is able to touch the reader deeply. It captures with great psychological depth the emotional world of the two young women who find themselves — albeit staggered in time — in an extremely difficult and surprisingly similar situation.

Translator Dr Heike Patschke presented the book in our pitching session on 3 March 2022.

For further information please contact:

Dr Heike Patzschke
On this website
Barbarastraße 4
D-50374 Erftstadt
Tel: 02235-7940577
E-Mail: [email protected]
www.japan-communication-office.de

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2013

Kôdansha

Shishiwataribana [Lion Cross Point]

Author: Masatsugu ONO

About the author:
Masatsugu ONO was born in 1970. He is a Romance studies scholar, translator, and author of numerous novels. 
At the Waseda University in Tôkyô Currently he holds the position as Professor. In 2001 he was awarded the Asahi New Writers Award, and in 2014 he received the 152nd Akutagawa Prize.
Translation into German: 
Am Fuße des Tokyo Skytree : Die Geschichte eines Geflüchteten aus dem Kongo.  Translated by Heike Patzschke. In: Donnerberg, Louisa / Schreiber, Ulrich: Refugees Worldwide. Literarische Reportagen. Berlin: Verlag Klaus Wagenbach 2017
Translations into English: 
At the Edge of the Woods, TWO LINES PRESS (April 2022), translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter
Echo on the Bay, TWO LINES PR; Translation Edition 2020, translated by Angus Turvill
Lion Cross Point, TWO LINES PR; Translation Edition 2018, translated by Angus Turvill
At the Edge of the Woods,‎ UEA Publishing Project 2017, translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter

About the book:
Translation of the title: Lion Cross Point
170 pages
ISBN-10: 4062182076
ISBN-13: 978-4062182072 
Publisher: Kôdansha, 2013

Original language: Japanese
English translation: Lion Cross Point, 
TWO LINES PR; translation edition 2018, translated by Angus Turvill

Subject:
This novel focuses on the ten-year-old boy Takeru who is shy and has been traumatized by memories of unspeakable acts against his mother and his handicapped brother. Mitsuko, an elderly woman, takes Takeru to his mother’s village and cares for him. A subtle portrayal of a child’s sense of memory and community, the novel describes how the little boy is gradually cured thanks to the power and beauty of nature and to the human warmth of the villagers for whom cohesion in the human community is essential.

Abstract:
The writing style of the novel is based on the multiple third-person perspective, but most of the work is written in a way that is close to the single third-person perspective, that means to Takeru’s position. However, Takeru is only ten years old, and his memories are very vague due to his traumatic experiences. So, he is unable to tell anyone about them. The invisible narrator accompanies the protagonist and offers a narrative quality similar to that of a first-person novel, telling what the protagonist himself cannot tell, and telling only what the reader cannot know. It is not Takeru but the narrator who asks and answers the questions and summarizes the story.
Takeru’s mother lives together with her two sons and a violent man in the town of Momono, later she and her sons flee to Akeroma. The siblings are neglected and eventually abandoned by their mother, but from time to time the brothers get help and are rescued by kind neighbors so that they somehow survive. In the summer of his tenth year, Takeru is taken to his mother’s village on Kyushu by Mitsuko, an elderly woman who is one of Takeru’s relatives, with whom he lives from then on. The fate of his brother remains uncertain. Takeru leads a sheltered life here, surrounded by goodwill and human warmth, but memories of his terrible experiences in Momono and Akeroma keep coming back.
A mysterious presence appears in this novel. He is the first person Takeru sees when he arrives at the airport, and sometimes he appears and reassures him with strange words. It is clear that he is a man, but he looks like he could be either a child or an old man, though he is neither. When Takeru arrives at Mitsuko’s house, he finds a photo of someone who looks like this person. He is called “Bunji,” is mentally disabled, and died when he was very young. His younger brother Takeshi had also died quite young. Takeru feels they have something in common: the similarity of the names Takeru and Takeshi and the fact that they have a disabled brother.
Takeru experiences a kind of spiritual healing through the human warmth of the villagers and the strong power of nature. It is the author’s idiosyncrasy to close the story with a positive outlook while constantly denouncing light and shadow.

Translator Dr Heike Patschke presented the book in our pitching session on 3 March 2022.

For further information please contact:

Dr Heike Patzschke
On this website
Barbarastraße 4
D-50374 Erftstadt
Tel: 02235-7940577
E-Mail: [email protected]
www.japan-communication-office.de

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2021

Ateneo de Manila University Press

Aswanglaut

Author: Allan N. Derain

About the author:
Allan N. Derain the author of several books, including Iskrapbuk (UP Press), The Next Great Tagalog Novel at iba pang Kuwento (UP Press), Aswanglaut (Ateneo de Manila University Press) and Ang Banal na Aklat ng mga Kumag (Cacho and Anvil) which won the Carlos Palanca Memorial Grand Prize Award, The Reader’s Choice Award, and the National Book Award. He edited the aswang anthology May Tiktik sa Bubong, May Sigbin sa Silong which won the National Book Award and the Gintong Aklat Award. An Assistant Professor both in the Kagawaran ng Filipino and Fine Arts Department of Ateneo de Manila University, he teaches Creative Writing, Art Appreciation, and Philippine Literature and also currently serves as the director of AILAP (Ateneo Institute of Literary Arts and Practices).

About the book: 
Original publication: Ateneo de Manila University Press, Quezon City  
ISBN: 139786214481057
244 pages
Language: Tagalog

In his latest novel, Allan N. Derain takes his play on Filipino epics and uncertain origins to dizzying heights. It all begins simply: a girl in a prototypical coastal village, sometime during the Spanish colonial period (1564 and 1898), must cremate her mother's illegitimate child - a fish-like sibling. In doing so, it attracts a wide variety of figures from the spirit world and healers. A metamorphosis takes place. In the course of the novel, the girl transforms into a crocodile, which is also an aswang - a man-eating hybrid creature subsumed to the class of witches by the Spanish priests. 
A witty and angry manifesto of contemporary aswangs comes as a prelude to the story. This is how the narrator, looking into the past from a modern metropolis, reveals himself. As the novel progresses, he shifts in tone from elderly storyteller  to parodist, from chanting shaman to contemporary Cervantes, intertwining the thread of the narrative by ever new stories into the tales. Thus, the drama of the girl Luklak is embedded in the decline of a village where the magic of a Catholic priest tries to assert itself against the animistic beliefs of the inhabitants. The priest is defeated because he fails to avert the greatest danger: An attack by pirates from the sultanates to the south. A gigantic sea battle, in which sea monsters and flocks of cranes finally intervene, precedes Luklak's final transformation. 
What Allan N. Derain conjures up in fantastic tableaux and parodic aperçus is no paradisiacal Eden, no great matriarchal harmony, and no Eldorado of genuinely male heroes. Derain fictionalizes a village in which a man can also be an animal or a ghost. Daydreams, nightmares, illnesses, ritual dances, and drunkenness stimulate these transitions. Just before the doom, for example, a flock of ghost birds fantasizes about how to win the battle of the ancient beings against Christianity, Islam and the Chinese emperor. They find no answer. In the surviving aswang and their guardian spirits, however, the author seems to hold out a hope: The unredeemed promise of a humanity that does not solidify into contempt and demarcation for "inferiors" of all kinds. 
In this way, Derain intervenes in current global debates: the relationship of powerful civilizations to indigenous communities, of humans to other species, and thus the question of what progress actually consists of. 
The book is illustrated with drawings by the author himself. They are not necessary for comprehending the story, but they give an impression of the witty handling of the carefully researched mythological figures. 

Translator Annette Hug presented the book in our pitching session on 3 March 2022.

For further information please contact:

Annette Hug
On this website
E-Mail: [email protected]
Website: www.annettehug.ch

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2019-2021

Various publishers

Figures of Memory from Hong Kong

Author: Five authors from Hongkong

Figures of Memory from Hong Kong (Working title)
[D: Hongkonger Erinnerungsfiguren]
A collection of five short stories written by five authors from Hongkong, compiled and translated by Kathrin Bode and Jörn Grundmann
Original language: Chinese

1.
YU Yuen Lan 余婉蘭, “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” (Höhle der vergessenen Träume) Fleurs des Lettres 字花 85 (2020): 34–41.
Translator: Jörn Grundmann
About the short story:
Stripped of his memory and physicality, a disoriented young adult slowly awakes in a dark room, finding his consciousness and senses connected to a mechanical body that is not his own. While trying to determine his surroundings and to reassure himself of his own personhood, he recalls the total erasure of his past existence having been decided upon by his parents as a last resort to save his life. Constantly on the verge of fainting, he sets out to explore the unfamiliar environment he finds himself in. Fragments of perception reveal a dystopian scene of devastation that hints at the protest-shaken city of Hong Kong in 2019/20. Yet the vaguely familiar fragments remain utterly incoherent. They do not bring back the image of the city we once knew, but coalesce instead into an uncanny vision of a place deprived of its identity, memory and soul. What remains is a ghost town where seemingly intact human shells dwell cave-like behind innumerable window holes in a city of ruins.
About the author:
YU Yuen Lan (余婉蘭) is a journalist and writer from Hong Kong. The Bestiary 無一不野獸 (2018) is her first anthology of short stories and poems. In her writings she inquisitively explores primitive desires, perceptions of infinite void and the prospect of death, woven in the complexity of family dynamics. Her topics often touch upon the hidden areas of the unconscious both in individuals and society.

2.
LEE Chi-Leung 李智良, “Wind und Laut” (Wind and Sound) 風與聲, Q-Square 方圓 3 (Hong Kong: The House of Hong Kong Literature, 2019): 41–48.
Translator: Jörn Grundmann
About the short story:
Torn between the anonymity and uncontrollable dynamics of violent street protests and the oppressive isolation in his or her room, a young individual tries in vain to break this cycle of despair, paranoia and compulsion brought about by getting involved in the protest movement. Contemplations of suicide alternate with attempts to make a clear cut with the protagonist’s past as a protester and to return to some sort of everyday life. Yet one chat message suffices to shatter the illusion of normality and to restart this cycle of dread. ―Written several months into the period of civil unrest that shook Hong Kong in 2019/20, LEE tries to describe the psychological state of a protester in a place that in its very conception and design is hostile to the psychological and even the physical wellbeing of people by institutionalizing human isolation.
About the author:
LEE Chi-Leung (李智良) is a fiction and non-fiction writer. His writings are known to disrupt genre boundaries, and are marked by a hyper-consciousness of the visceral and affective experience of capitalistic urban existence. Titles under his name include Porcelain 白瓷 (1999), A Room Without Myself 房間 (2008, winner of Hong Kong Book Prize and the Hong Kong Biennial Awards for Chinese Literature), The Grass is Bluer by the Sea 海邊草更藍 (2018) and Days We Cross 渡日若渡海 (2020).
LEE received his BA and MPhil degrees in comparative literature from the University of Hong Kong, and had worked as free-lance contributor, editor, thesis ghost writer and translator. In recent years he has been teaching creative writing, film and literature-related courses in local universities and writing workshops for youth and adult in the community.

3.
HON Lai-chu 韓麗珠, “Becoming one’s own” 成為自己的人, in idem, Half Eclipse 半蝕 (Taipei: Acropolis, 2021), 363–424.
Translator: Kathrin Bode
About the short story:
In 2020 the pandemic and political developments changed the course of Hong Kong and the world. Everyday life has been put on hiatus in many places as people and entire societies entered into a state of “Half Eclipse.” They do not experience a total eclipse but neither do they continue to live in broad daylight. What used to be taken for granted is now in the process of being eroded. It is not that we never had a home, but this home is now disappearing bit by bit together with our sense of security. If this characterizes the human condition in the twenty-first century, then how are people supposed to live in this state of gradual disappearance?
Reflecting on her own experiences as a witness to the changes that Hong Kong underwent in the last two years, HON turns inward and resorts to writing diary-like contemplations through which she probes into issues that far exceed the narrow scope of what happened in and to Hong Kong. 
About the author:
HON Lai-chu (韓麗珠) is a Hong Kong writer. She has authored eight books and won numerous awards, including the Hong Kong Biennial Award for Chinese Literature for fiction. She was a resident at The University of Iowa's International Writing Program in 2010. HON's 2006 novella The Kite Family 風箏家族, won her the New Writer’s Novella first prize from Taiwan’s Unitas Literary Association. A Dictionary of Two Cities 雙城辭典, which she co-authored with fellow Hong Kong writer Dorothy TSE Hiu-hung (謝曉虹) was published in 2013 and received the 2013 Hong Kong Book Prize. Among her most recent Publication are Returning Home 回家 (2018), Embroidered Skin 人皮刺繡 (2019), and Black Sun 黑日 (2020).

4.
Darren LOU Cheuk-leun 盧卓倫, Nachtsee (Nightsea) 夜海 (Hong Kong, Spicy Fish, 2020). (Selection of 71 pages from a total of 245)
About the short story:
People with disabilities, hired laborers, non-binary people, the homeless and people living in precarious circumstances ― Darren LOU focuses on the everyday life and existence of marginalized groups in Hong Kong. He describes an old woman, who lives alone among countless pieces of new and used cloths, seemingly unable to manage her life. The narrator slowly discovers the meaningful order in her chaotic flat. He starts to understand the world in which she lives and immerses into the experiences she has made – everything is closely connected to the city and the many changes it had experienced.
About the author:
Darren LOU Cheuk-leun (盧卓倫) started to write at a very young age. After finishing high school, he worked for four years in various jobs before entering University. He graduated from Hong Kong Baptist University in 2020, having gained a bachelor’s in social work. Presently, he is working as a social worker in a Christian NGO in Hong Kong. His writings appear in various literary magazines such as Fleurs des Lettres 字花 and P-articles 虛詞. His first collection of short stories, Night-sea 夜海, was published in 2020 by Spicy Fish Publishing House. 

5.
Dorothy TSE Hiu-hung 謝曉虹, “City in flux of the bygone” 逝水流城, in idem, Ghost in the Umbrella 無遮鬼 (Hong Kong: The House of Hong Kong Literature, 2020), 1–112. (Selection of 80 pages)
Translator: Jörn Grundmann
About the short story:
In this novella, written in a style that might be best described as magic realism, the protagonist experiences a growing estrangement from his or her family members and from the city that used to be their home. The loosely connected episodes are marked by constantly changing dimensions of space and time as well as by the permeability between the boundaries of dream and reality. Yet no matter how fantastic and unreal TSE’s masterfully crafted images might appear, the uncanny reality they allude to constantly remind the reader of the protests and the massacres that took place in this city and of the deep trauma they have inflicted on the population of Hong Kong.
About the author:
Dorothy TSE Hiu-hung (謝曉虹) is the author of four short-story collections in Chinese, including So Black 好黑 (2003, 2005) and Ghost in the Umbrella 無遮鬼(2020), and has garnered attention in English since the 2014 publication of her collection Snow and Shadow (translated by Nicky Harman; longlisted for 2015 Best Translated Book Award). Her literary prizes also include Taiwan’s Unitas New Fiction Writers’ Award and the Hong Kong Award for Creativity Writing in Chinese.
Dorothy has been granted residencies at Art Omi, The Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing, the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program and Vermont Studio Center. TSE was a winner of the 2019 Words Without Borders Poems in Translation Prize. A co-founder of Hong Kong’s literary magazine, Fleurs des Lettres 字花, she teaches creative writing at Hong Kong Baptist University.
Her first novel Owlish鷹頭貓與音樂箱女孩has been published in Chinese in 2020. The English version (translated by Natascha Bruce), received a PEN Heim award and will be published in 2023 by Graywolf in the USA and by Fitzcarraldo in the UK. The German version (translated by Marc Hermann) is bound to appear in 2022, published by Büchergilde.

Translators Kathrin Bode & Jörn Grundmann presented the book in our pitching session on 3 March 2022.

For further information please contact:

Kathrin Bode
On this website
E-Mail: [email protected]

and

Jörn Peter Grundmann Ph.D.
On this website
Post-doctoral Research Fellow
Hong Kong Baptist University
Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology
E-Mail: <[email protected]>
T (852) 3411 2751
F (852) 3411 5510

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2020

Kanisius

Tembang dan Perang

Author: Junaedi Setiyono

About the author:
Junaedi Setiyono, born in Kebumen, Java, Indonesia, in 1965, is one of Indonesia's modern authors of historical fiction. His focus in on Javanese history and traditions, in particular of the colonial period in early 19th century. His first book Glonggong ("Singing aloud") was published in 2007. The author's third book Dasamuka ("The ten-headed demon, a character in an Old Javanese epic") won the Jakarta Arts Council Novel Writing Competition in 2012. So far, he has published four novels. He received his doctorate degree in language education studies from State University of Semarang/Indonesia, after having done research at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
Two of his novels were published in English translation by Dalang Publisher, California.
More detailed information on the author:
https://dalangpublishing.com/junaedi-setiyono-bio-2

About the book:
Publisher: Kanisius, Yogyakarta
ISBN 978-979-21-6371-1
370 pages
Language: Indonesian

Tembang dan Perang was translated into English and published by Dalang Publishing in California in 2021 with the title "Panji's Quest".

Abstract:
The novel of Junaedi Setiyono Tembang dan Perang ("Song and War") draws back on the Indonesian classical love story Panji Angreni written around the year 1800. It makes part of the large corpus of Panji stories, all of them having the same major plot: Prince Panji and a Princess are betrothed to each other, but are separated by various circumstances. Many adventures happen before they meet again and are happily united. One of the characteristics of the Panji stories is the variety of storylines embedded in different contexts such as specific political, social and religious conditions. Junaedi Setiyono does the same: Within the classical Angreni story, he integrates the storyline about a commoner who gets involved in dramatical episodes and demonstrates the desperate subjection within the social hierarchy; by inserting dialogues on moral behaviour and references to philosophical teaching of Old Javanese traditions, the author enters critique and advice on religion, leadership and physical love. Such interventions may be understood as critique and advice for present-day society in Indonesia, as well. The poetic descriptions of events make the reader delve into the atmosphere of the respective settings. The story which is set far away - in time, place, and cultural background - will give the German reader access to a world full of universal wisdom.

Translator Dr Lydia Kieven presented the book in our pitching session on 3 March 2022.

For further information please contact:

Dr Lydia Kieven
On this website
Berrenrather Str. 315 C
D-50937 Köln
Tel. +49 (0)221 409626 /
Mob. +49 (0)176 504 666 04
Website: www.lydia-kieven.com

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