Asymptote Podcast

In this episode, we dive into the innovative poetry and translations of Asymptote's Winter Issue. First, we take a look at the rhythmic poetry of South African poet Toast Coetzer, which blurs the line between music and poetry. Then we examine how Victoria Cóccaro and Rebekah Boudon translated Pablo Katchadjian's supposedly untranslatable poem "Martin Fierro Ordered Alphabetically." After that we'll listen to Rajiv Mohabir wonderful translation of Lalbihari Sharma's folk songs from Holi Songs of Demerara. And finally, we'll see how Jared Pearce brought ancient Babylonia to America with his poetic translations from Babylonians as Americans as Babylonians. This is the Asymptote Podcast.

This month, we examine a character who has been influencing the minds of authors for thousands of years: the Devil. We'll be taking a look at that fiery hell-demon we all know and love to hate (or fear), but we'll also discuss how other cultures view this figure. We first consider Maximon, a Guatemalan saint not recognized by the Catholic Church—a fusion of Satan, Judas, Cortes, and the Mayan trickster god Mam. Then we'll move on to Russia, where we will look at how the Devil influenced two hundred years of their literature. We'll end with an exploration of the Voodoo religion, which isn't as devilish as you may think.

In this episode, we look at divergent forms of storytelling in translation—from the fact-centered world of literary reportage to the poetic proclamations of a third-millennium heart. Beatrice Smigasiewicz brings us coverage from Krakow’s Conrad Festival, where she caught up with one of Poland’s most prominent writers of literary nonfiction, Mariusz Szczygieł, and his award-winning translator, Antonia Lloyd-Jones. They discuss the legacy of 20th century reportage in Polish literature and the power of storytelling in dealing with the country’s wartime experience and postwar Communist era. Katrine Øgaard Jensen presents new translations of poems from Ursula Andkjær Olsen’s Third-Millennium Heart, an explosive collection that pushes story to the limit—breaking every rule of storytelling and yet bringing us a character who feels real. Olsen won the prestigious literary award Montanaprisen in 2013 for the book, excerpted here in its original Danish along with English translations.

In this episode we look at the concept of home; how we shape it and how it shapes us. Yardenne Greenspan takes a look at literature of trauma, bringing us work by two Israeli authors Yonatan Berg and Ron Dahan, who recount the horrors they have seen (and been a part of) in their country, as well as Yehiel De-Nur better known by his pen name, Ka-Tzetnik 135633, a holocaust survivor who in bitter detail recounts his time in Auschwitz. What unites these authors is their experience with LSD. Flashbacks to their traumatic experiences directly inform upon their writing and present the reader with a complex portrait of trauma. Daniel Goulden brings us a report from the Brooklyn Book Fair with recordings of Jonathan Lethem, Vivian Gornick, John Leguizamo, Cecily Wong, and Chinelo Okparanta discussing their respective homes and how that informs upon their work.

Produced by: Daniel Goulden, Sally Decker, Yardenne Greenspan, Florian Duijsens, and Justin Maki.

Featuring: Alessio Franko and Piyali Syam

Music: "Running Waters" by Jason Shaw, "The Elevator Bossa Nova" by Ben Shaw, "Blue Draggish" by the Underscore Orkestra, "Blue Moon" by Ainst Char, and "Podcast Theme" by Sally Decker. Creative Commons licenses can be found at http://freemusicarchive.org/ and http://audionautix.com/. Some changes were made to these tracks.

We're back with a second portion of scary stories! Following on from last month's episode, part two of our audio anthology ventures even further into the dark and dingy corners of world literature... This instalment features haunting tales from Japan, Egypt, America, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with writing by Franz Kafka, Yoko Ogawa, Dean Paschal, and Mansoura Ez-Eldin. Along the way you'll find a hallucinatory giant, a doll with a mind of its own, a hideously disfigured carrot, and the Statue of Liberty as you've never seen her before. Plus there's a conversation with cultural critic Adam Kotsko about the epidemic of creepiness on our TV screens, from Happy Days to Mad Men to the Burger King commercials. Join us as we continue exploring the questions: What is the uncanny? And why do we enjoy it so much?

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This episode is based on the book The Uncanny Reader: Stories from the Shadows, edited by Marjorie Sandor (St. Martin's Griffin, 2015). Buy a copy of the book to read full versions of all the stories featured here, as well as others by H. P. Lovecraft, Joan Aiken, Steven Millhauser, and many more: http://tinyurl.com/qcs9njk

Adam Kotsko is the author of Creepiness (Zero Books, 2015), which is part of a trilogy with two other studies of strange pop-culture obsessions called Awkwardness and Why We Love Sociopaths: http://tinyurl.com/ohkujfc

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Produced by: Emma Jacobs and Sally Decker

Featuring performances by: Tim Jensen, Sally Decker, Joy Futrell, Elena Passarello, and Tracy Daugherty

Music by: Ash Black Bufflo, Garmisch Partenkirchen, Kai Engel, Rod Hamilton, ROW, and Chris Zabriskie

Special thanks to: Marjorie Sandor; Adam Kotsko; Lee Yew Leong and József Szabo; Eric Gleske and everyone at Oregon State University; all the publishers, authors, and translators who generously gave us permission to use their stories