Asia Literary Review No.33, Spring 2017 Sampler

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The Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea) runs a wide range of programs to help Korean literature reach more readers across the globe.

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No. 33, Spring 2017

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No. 33, Spring 2017

Publisher Greater Talent Limited Managing Editor Phillip Kim Editor in Chief Martin Alexander Senior Editors Kavita A. Jindal, Michael Vatikiotis, Zheng Danyi Special Acknowledgement Ilyas Khan, co-founder of the Asia Literary Review Production Alan Sargent Front and back cover images with kind permission of the artist, Yomei Chiang and Sotheby’s Hong Kong The Asia Literary Review is published by Greater Talent Limited 2504 Universal Trade Centre, 3 Arbuthnot Road, Central, Hong Kong asialiteraryreview.com Managing.Editor@AsiaLiteraryReview.Com Editor@AsiaLiteraryReview.Com Submissions@AsiaLiteraryReview.Com Subscriptions and Advertising: Admin@AsiaLiteraryReview.Com Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro Printed by Charlesworth Press ISBN: 978-988-14782-9-0 (print) ISBN: 978-988-12155-7-4 (e-book) ISSN: 1999-8511 Extracts from The Shoe and The Comedian were provided to the ALR through the generous support of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, ltikorea.org ‘Grass Cradle, Glass Lullaby’ and ‘Blood Like Water’ are published with kind permission of Fox Spirit Books www.foxspirit.co.uk The image accompanying ‘Grass Cradle, Glass Lullaby’ © Imran Siddiq www.imranwrites.com @flickimp ‘A Trunk Call, Colombo’ and ‘Islamabad’ are published with kind permission of Bloomsbury India.

Individual contents © 2017 the contributors/Greater Talent Limited This compilation © 2017 Greater Talent Limited

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Contents Editorial

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Fiction from Tangut Inn

8

Yijun Luo translated by Pingta Ku

Grass Cradle, Glass Lullaby

24

Isabel Yap

Blood Like Water

34

Eve Shi

The Wall

49

Ho Sok Fong translated by Natascha Bruce

The Shoe

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Kim Soom translated by Jason Woodruff

from Star Sign

74

Shibasaki Tomoka translated by Laurel Taylor

In the Name of the Father

86

Sun Yisheng translated by Nicky Harman

Flotsam

112

Zach MacDonald

from The Handymen of Mahoro

135

Shion Miura translated by Asuka Minamoto

from The Comedian

152

Kim Seong Joong translated by Stella Kim

Non-fiction Interview: MargrĂŠt HelgadĂłttir

21

Asia Literary Review

from Underground Fire

99

Yu Jian translated by Simon Patton with Ellen Chow

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Poetry Dinner Conversations Poem for a Dead Dog Ode to Patrick Swayze

44 45 47

Tishani Doshi

A Trunk Call, Colombo

57

Indran Amirthanayagam

Update on The Left-Behind Woman On a Pair of Young Men in the Underground Parking Garage at fX Sudirman Mall What the Dead Want from the Living Scenes from a Beautiful Life

66 69 70 72

Norman Erikson Pasaribu translated by Tiffany Tsao

Dha: Ladakh Manali: Himachal Pradesh, 2012 Harajuku, Ginza: Tokyo

105 107 109

Corinne Elysse Adams

The Skin of Tradition Midlife Crisis

131 133

Mona Dash

Islamabad

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Mehvash Amin

Watchers on a Working Day No Place Like

164 165

Zilka Joseph

Contributors

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Editorial Edit orial

Edit orial

O

ne of the Asia Literary Review’s principal aims over the past decade has been to introduce undiscovered Asian voices to the Englishlanguage world. Sometimes, stories come to us from emerging writers (some young, some not-so) as unsolicited submissions which simply leap off the page and demand attention. However, many more of our published works new to an English readership come to us from an indispensable but under-appreciated core of literary professionals – the translators.

Translation is both a rewarding and a fraught undertaking. Translated texts have been circulating for centuries, bridging cultures, expanding human thought and driving profound social change. The accumulated library of translated literature has allowed us to hold any one of a vast number of foreign worlds in the palm of our hand and enter it from the comfort of a familiar armchair. What would anglophone culture be without the enrichment of a Homer, Hugo, Dostoevsky, Márquez, Mann, or Murakami?

Yet, translating literature has always been – and always will be – an imprecise and subjective craft, vulnerable to harsh criticism. The debate over the translator’s role is old, and yet it continues to rage. How closely, in terms of technical fidelity, should the translated text adhere to its source, even if the resulting voice, description and dialogue end up odd or clunky in the target language? Alternatively, how much liberty may the translator take in adapting the text? At what point does the resulting work become not so much a faithful representation of the original, but something altogether different? Anyone who has read two translated versions of the same work will sense how different each experience is from the other. And who’s to say which is better – or whether such a judgment can even be made?

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Editorial

The ALR was pleased that the Man Booker International Prize was recast in 2016 to focus exclusively on single works translated into English, with the prize money shared equally between author and translator. This approach acknowledges both the vital contributions that world literature has made to the anglophone library, and the delicate balancing act that the two collaborators must engage in to produce an internationally successful work.

We at the ALR were delighted when the 2016 winner was The Vegetarian, written by South Korea’s Han Kang and translated by Deborah Smith.

This past winter, in our own more modest celebration of translations, English PEN and the ALR jointly organised a competition called ‘PEN Presents . . . East and South-east Asia’. Translators from the region were invited to submit book proposals and translation samples related to works written by noteworthy local authors who have not yet had a complete work published in English. A panel of judges chose six finalists from a wide variety of entrants. The selected translators were granted a cash award, had their work compiled into a catalogue that was marketed at the London Book Fair in March 2017, and have been invited to London for an event in June 2017 when a winner will be chosen.

This volume of the ALR features translations from five of the finalists (listed alphabetically by translator): Natascha Bruce, for Ho Sok Fong’s Lake Like a Mirror (Malaysia) Pingta Ku, for Yijun Luo’s Tangut Inn (Taiwan) Laurel Taylor, for Tomoka Shibasaki’s Star Sign (Japan) Tiffany Tsao, for Norman Erikson Pasaribu’s Sergius Seeks Bacchus (Indonesia) Jason Woodruff, for Soom Kim’s The Shoe (South Korea) We also include captivating work from three other entrants – Nicky Harman’s ‘In the Name of the Father’ (China), Stella Kim’s ‘The Comedian’ (South Korea) and Asuka Minamoto’s ‘The Handymen’ (Japan).

The world these days seems more divisive than in the past, with a social rhetoric increasingly about walls rather than bridges, divorce rather than union. Translations such as those in this volume offer resistance against this troubling trend. The work is passionate, dedicated and courageous.

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Editorial

The translators implore us to broaden our horizons rather than withdraw from debate into the echoes of our own intellectual caves. They ask us to maintain a supple mind and an open heart. For providing us with this opportunity, the ALR extends its deep gratitude to literary translators everywhere.

Phillip Kim Martin Alexander

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Interview: Margrét Helgadóttir

Int erview: Margrét Int erview: Helgadóttir Margrét Helgadóttir

M

argrét Helgadóttir is editor of the Fox Spirit Book of Monsters, a seven-volume series with titles published annually from 2014–2020.

The first three volumes cover European, African and Asian monsters. In 2016, African Monsters was shortlisted for the British Fantasy Awards.

In this issue of the Asia Literary Review we feature two stories from Asian Monsters: ‘Grass Cradle, Glass Lullaby’ by Isabel Yap and ‘Blood Like Water’

by Eve Shi.

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Interview: Margrét Helgadóttir

Where does your passion for monsters come from? And how do you define what a monster is?

I love diversity and the different; the abnormality sticking out in the homogeneous crowd. I also like the dynamics between light and dark and how they give life and meaning to each other. Werner Herzog said, ‘What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.’ I am also quite fascinated with the psychology of monsters. Some would say that monsters are the mirrors of ourselves, that we make them, and then fear them for what they show us about ourselves.

I think we tend to place monsters into two categories: either the beasts living within us or the beasts living next to us. Fox Spirit Books gives these latter monsters a renaissance, to re-establish their dark reputation, to give them a comeback and let the world know of their real terror. These monsters have no interest in you except tearing you apart or putting terror in your heart. Bless them.

What do you think the nature of monsters from local folklore says about a country’s culture and psyche?

Folklore is often closely linked to religious beliefs, old myths and legends.

I am quite fascinated by how humans of all times, regardless of geography, culture or demography, have created monsters. No matter where you are in the world, monsters have been something to blame when bad things happen – the sudden death of dear ones, bad luck, shipwrecks – or a way to explain mysterious things like thunder and lightning. Many monsters also challenge our thoughts and fears of what will happen when we die, or the relationship between humans and animals in the wilderness.

You’ve published anthologies on monsters from Asia, Europe and Africa.

How are Asian monsters different from those from other regions?

Some monsters are universal. You will always find the shape-shifters, the flesh-eating walking dead and the great monsters of the lakes and sea. But what is important to one culture might not be so vital to another. A signifier in Asian Monsters is the close link between spirits and ghosts and Asian folklore. Some of these spirits and ghosts are mischievous, others quite terrifying, many sad. So the tales about Asian monsters create an almost

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Interview: Margrét Helgadóttir

ethereal, dreamlike atmosphere throughout the book. This is very different from the previous volume, African Monsters, where the stories were more about place and origin, about immigration and going home – maybe a strong witness of how much soil means to the African authors. The African monsters are also more closely connected to magic – like witches; and nature – like the haunting forest spirits, the forest growing wild and the deadly water. Home is also an underlying theme in Asian Monsters, but here it’s more about the family itself and the strong relationships between loved ones – dead, living or absent.

Do you think a people’s relationship with its monster fiction and folklore changes with a country’s economic and political development?

I think, just as we remember folklore and ancient beliefs, the old monsters will survive. What is interesting is that many of the monsters created today are based on old beliefs; and others are hybrids, created out of climate change or nuclear catastrophe.

Asian Monsters is published by Fox Spirit Books, www.foxspirit.co.uk.

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Poetry

Tishani Doshi

Tishani D oshi

Dinner Conversations We never talked about whether Jains were OK with electric crematoriums when I was younger. These days even the chairs have opinions on mortality, speak with certainty, like people who are convinced they know exactly which mosquito gave them dengue.

I’m not sure what to make of the world when someone opens the fridge for a carton of milk, greets his wife and daughters, Morning Girls! then drops to the floor.

I don’t know if falling asleep in Benares and never waking up is better than slamming your head on a San Francisco pavement by mistake. And how to respond to Father, who starts up about the little time he has left when I finally announce I’m getting hitched.

The years grow drowsy on antibiotics and you’d think we’d be counting the beloveds just to make sure they’ve still got teeth in their heads.

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Tishani Doshi

Never mind the floods, never mind the sludgetorn vessels. You’d think we’d be giving up on sugar and taking our lungs for a walk. I’m scared I’ll die in a stupid way, by choking on a cornflake, when what I want is to be prefixed by majesty – Her Majesty or her majestic hips could kill . . . but what I get might be a raft floating out to sea, nothing that is over indefinitely, because here is Brother, earlobes wet from a shower, hands full of friends – a gentleman’s navy sock, a kerchief of silk, robberies of restaurant serviettes.

He holds them at the table’s edge, swishing them this way and that till all our fears are a kind of hunger – belly of wolf, eyes of wolf kings, always asking for more more more

Poem for a Dead Dog I want to lift you from the sand the way a harmattan ploughs the hell out of a Nigerian street.

To know you the way lovers in the first blush of heat will speak of the animals they want to be in the next life – elephant, hippo, always grand in design. But life, even though it’s ours, is mostly small. Small the way I squash ants against a wall. I want to tie a rope around your neck and lead you

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Norman Erikson Pasaribu

through – that these feelings are perfectly normal, endured by every soul within every human being.

You see how it feels, she says, to her freezing breasts, to her chattering teeth, to her shivering shoulders. Why don’t you see how I feel every day.

And why don’t you tell me how to be happy.

On a Pair of Young Men in the Underground Parking Garage at fX Sudirman Mall Is there anything more moving than two young men in a Toyota Rush parked in the corner of level P3, stealing a little time and space for themselves, exchanging kisses wide-eyed – keeping watch as one for security guards or janitors, in each other’s arms, escaping the loneliness of another week living someone else’s life. A friend dismissed their feelings as unnatural urges but each of them knows who he is now. Both are sure the longing they feel is genuine longing and the love in their hearts is the same love that made Sergius and Bacchus one, and the loneliness they feel in their vacant rooms is no different from John Henry Newman’s from 1876 to his death, and isn’t it the rest of the world that has it all wrong?

Aelred of Rievaulx said there is nothing more exquisite than to love and be loved – it’s true, even though they also know that the world’s just not ready for us.

Thérèse of Lisieux was baffled by how God played favourites, why some souls were chosen over others, why a sinner like Augustine of Hippo got to wear a white robe,

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Poetry

all shimmering and spotless. Even the two young men sometimes wondered why they were the ones who had to be there to show love could bloom anywhere, even in the dark, and that love growing in the dark was no less life-giving.

What the Dead Want from the Living So how did it all happen?

You refused to come home in a cab with me because you wanted to stay out and have fun.

The snazzy-looking guy bought us G&Ts and listened, told us stories about his own parents and, like a nice boy didn’t hustle you into a toilet stall. On the dance floor you two were like old friends. Later in the men’s room gazing into the mirror you said you wanted to go home with him and I said there was a midterm tomorrow, and you laughed – I laughed?

I think you didn’t believe me. How on earth could good grades be more important than finding the one guy who didn’t interrupt you when you told him about the hours you spent seeing a shrink, and the lies you told your parents – you’ve changed, you’re cured, you’re brand-new even though you’ll always be the same, even to me,

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Poetry

Corinne Elysse Adams

Corinne Elysse Adams

Dha Ladakh Dha, where the arrow landed in paradise shhht!

Unclear in legend – when the shaft flew from his bow did it pierce a green-bellied valley hung low and heavy amid Himalayas, or spark and scrape to a stop in a lucky crevice and sprout amongst fossilled rock, dropping the first apricots into infertile granite?

A valley cut by mighty Indus, mother of rivers swallowing seeds and accidental offerings indiscriminate in her hunger and her embrace.

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Poetry

And later, after the truth of the beginning is no longer important, and apricots and apples overflowed from streams screams from Kargil ricocheted through trees, across roofs heaped in blankets of orange, apricots drying for winter, a mountain no different from any other marks the border with Pakistan.

Stillness in the ruin of rose gardens bombs lobbed over heads neither Muslim nor Hindu but collateral damage, echo of spinning prayer wheels, the grandmothers, hair down to their knees and looped back up again, grey in the roots and black strands saved and woven into the ends, scrap of youth – they remember this old sadness as they drop apricots into baskets and ancient coffee tins, flowered hats balanced over braids.

One young man makes jam all day long in the summer another smokes pot down in the apple trees a monkey child eats grapes in the canopy none of them legends yet.

Everyone claims they can’t remember the old stories, but a faraway focus comes into a father’s eyes as he rocks the sheep-hide full of milk to make butter, rhythmic roil of back and forth –

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shh, shh, shh, this is the story of how the arrow landed in paradise.

Manali Himachal Pradesh, 2012 i This morning I stole five apples.

They were so red I thought for sure I would die from the first sweet bite.

Licking piney rain from peel I devoured two with my hand still holding the branch, ecstasy of rain and root and bark and fruit all at once.

It seemed to me everything should be a gift. ii I couldn’t save the myna bird from the puddle of tar pooling out of a tipped-over barrel.

I saw it land, and must have hesitated because the second after I could have rescued it, its wing dipped and stuck. His relatives screamed from a sheath of pines as I coated my fingers and my lover’s ring trying to lift him free

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Poetry

Mona Dash

Mona D ash

The Skin of Tradition 1 The foreigner watches a wedding in fascination large bindi squatting on her forehead red saree colouring white limbs.

The elders enthuse at how she sits relaxed on the dusty ground reveres the sacredness of every chant embraces chaos in wondrous happiness.

The Americans, Germans, English, French, Italians flock here, hearts one with conch shells; cross-legged, slurp white rice and dal from banana leaves.

Yet I, I ask for my fork and spoon.

Yet I, born in a small town, tempered by heat, coloured with tradition, married saree-clad in front of the fire, complain of the fumes, my eyes burning. I, brought up within these walls make it a point to question too much:

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Why should I, why must I, bow in respect, hide in shame, follow rules and customs, forget myself?

I question for years.

Later, in London, that city I call home, forgetting that at home tulsi plants sit in courtyards white chita is drawn on Thursday to welcome Lakshmi. ‘A city without temples scratching its skyline cannot be home, ever,’ they pronounce.

I question for years.

2 The answer, thought but not mouthed: You can appreciate culture fold your legs in supplication bend your head, fast all day in a temple knowing tomorrow you will be home.

Today is a thrill, like climbing Machu Picchu like rowing down the Okavango Delta.

When the blood that runs in you today bled on a pyre hundreds of years ago soaking chrysanthemum garlands; when, had you lived in a village fifty years ago, you would be behind a veil waiting, watching; when not that many years back, a marriage marked you with blood red sindoor in black hair closeted rooms, opened legs breeding healthy sons if not white widows.

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Since you know all this, the legs don’t fold here in the dust, in the sacredness even though they do at yoga in the gym.

The heart that belongs, never accepting, runs, runs the farthest, to shed centuries of old skin.

Midlife Crisis Grow your own vegetables plant climbing roses, clematis write, complete a creative course travel around the world exercise, exercise, exercise eat salads only try for the first time, some cannabis learn to salsa learn to live?

Win the lottery have a baby.

Muddled, confused, thoughts milling together modern day fighting with the old Gaugin, Monet prisms, trapeziums the things never tried a threesome yoga?

Meditation, restlessness, hoping, killing, buy another house

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from The Handymen of Mahoro from The Handymen Shion Miura of Mahor o

Shion Miura translated by Asuka Minamoto

Old Lady Soneda Makes a Prediction

‘Y

ou’re going to be busy next year,’ declared old lady Soneda.

It was a fine evening in late December. They were in the hospital lounge, which was very quiet. Outside the windows, a threadbare lawn and withered trees with naked branches could be seen. The two large-screen TVs in the room were turned on, but barely audible. One was showing a drama rerun; the other, a live broadcast of a horse race.

The elderly people gathered in the lounge naturally parted into two groups, and sat absorbed in their respective programmes. Occasionally, the creaking of a wheelchair was heard, or a rustling of someone digging into a bag of buckwheat crackers brought from their room.

‘Really? Am I going to be rich?’ asked Tada Keisuke, cutting the sponge cake he had brought into bite-size pieces. Old lady Soneda’s eyes were glued to the sponge cake. On a paper plate Tada placed two slices; the rest he put in a plastic container, saying, ‘Now, don’t eat it all at once, you hear? Save it till snack time, and share with your roommates.’

He poured some hot tea from the vending machine into a paper cup and handed it to her. The old woman soaked her sponge cake in the tea, and began nibbling.

‘Your business will stay the same,’ she said. ‘It’s your personal life that’s going to make you busy. Maybe you’ll end up divorcing that wife of yours.’

Wife? Long gone, Tada thought, as he listened in silence.

‘And you’ll travel, and cry, and laugh – things like that.’

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from The Handymen of Mahoro

‘Travel? Where am I going?’

‘Somewhere far, far away. A place as far as the inside of your mind.’

Old lady Soneda had been distrustful of her mind ever since the doctor told her it was where the ghosts she saw at night came from. To her, the mind was like a distant foreign land where nobody spoke her language.

‘Hey, it’s Kiku and her predictions again,’ a hoarse voice came from out of the blue.

Tada turned to see an old man he often spotted in the hospital, leaning on his drip pole like a cane. ‘What to do? What to do?’ the old man said, shaking his head and walking over to the TV. Old lady Soneda finished off the last drop of her tea with a slurp.

‘Anyway, you’re going to be so busy you won’t have time to come and see me anymore.’

‘That’s not going to happen, Mum.’ Having said that, Tada was at a loss for words. It wasn’t up to him to make any promises. Not knowing what else to say, he said, ‘I think it’s time to go back to your room.’ The old woman nodded obediently.

She inched down the hallway, Tada patiently keeping pace with her. At almost ninety, the old woman’s back was badly bent, her head at the level of Tada’s waist. Back in her room, Tada helped as she climbed laboriously onto her bed, the middle one in the first of two rows of three. Sitting up on the bed with her legs neatly folded, she looked small and round, like a daifuku rice cake.

Placing the plastic container on a steel sideboard, Tada was about to say goodbye when a nurse entered the room. She gave him a quick nod of acknowledgment, making it hard for him to leave.

‘Soneda-san, aren’t you lucky to have such a good son! He’s here to see you again!’ the nurse exclaimed cheerfully. She went over to the old man (or woman – it was impossible for Tada to tell) lying on a bed at the very back of the room, and shouted into his (or her) ear, ‘How’s your back? Let’s shift you a little bit, shall we?’ The curtain was drawn swiftly, and Tada could sense the patient being rolled over to prevent bedsores.

He stood there for a few moments, looking down at the top of old lady Soneda’s head. Her thinning hair was soft and white. Eventually, he opened his mouth.

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‘Bye, Mum. Have a happy New Year.’

‘Yes,’ the old woman replied in a whisper. She always grew quiet when it was time for him to leave. Tada made a speedy exit; when he turned around at the door, old lady Soneda remained hunched over on her bed, still resembling a daifuku.

A ‘good son’ wouldn’t dump his aging mother in the hospital and spend New Year’s without her, or pay a total stranger to visit her in his place, Tada thought. But he also knew that such righteous thoughts arose because the woman in question wasn’t his own mother.

Climbing into his white pickup truck in the parking lot, Tada felt immensely relieved. No matter how bright their cream-coloured walls were, hospitals had a depressing air. He started the engine and lit a cigarette, waiting for the truck to heat up. The smell of ammonia and disinfectant clung to his nose; he rolled down the window slightly to let it out, along with the smoke from his cigarette.

He took his mobile phone out of his jacket pocket. On the fifth ring, a middle-aged woman answered.

‘Soneda Construction.’

‘This is Tada, the handyman. Is Mr Soneda in?’

‘He’s out now. Have you been to see her?’

‘Yes, just now.’

‘Good work, as always. I’ll tell him you called.’

She hung up rather abruptly. He didn’t even have time to warn Mrs Soneda of her possible divorce next year. Oh well, he thought, putting his phone away. The old woman wasn’t predicting anything; she was just sounding off.

He had five New Year decoration appointments tomorrow, and one year-end cleaning job to do. Putting his pickup into gear, Tada headed in the direction of Mahoro Station, and his office.

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from The Handymen of Mahoro

Business Is Booming

J

anuary and February were slow months for a handyman.

In the winter, there were fewer moves to make and lawns in need of weeding. Especially in the first few days of the year, business was virtually non-existent; after all, there weren’t many people out there who wanted some stranger doing odd jobs around the house when they were relaxing with their family, basking in the freshness of a brand-new year.

So, under ordinary circumstances, Tada should have been indulging himself in laziness and sleep in the dingy apartment that served both as his office and his home. But things were a little different this year: he had been asked to look after a dog over the New Year holiday.

The woman who had come to his office had been in her early forties.

She had had a large bag in one hand, and a red plastic pet carrier in the other. When Tada offered her a seat in the reception area, she had timidly brushed the dust from the sofa before sitting down and, after some hesitation, placed the bag on her lap and the pet carrier on the floor.

‘My family is visiting the master’s parents for the holidays,’ she’d said. ‘It wasn’t planned. All the pet hotels are full, and we can’t take her with us because the master’s mother has asthma. And we don’t feel comfortable asking our neighbours and troubling them at New Year. We really don’t know what to do.’

‘I see.’

Tada hadn’t been too thrilled. He wasn’t fond of women who referred to their husbands as ‘master’. This meant that he had an aversion to most married women, because many still used this term. He had to put such thoughts aside, though, as most of his clients were housewives. He had shifted his attention to the small creature at the woman’s feet, whose movements he could sense through the pet carrier.

‘What type of dog is she?’

The woman had lifted the carrier so that Tada could peer inside: it was a Chihuahua. Fantastic, Tada had thought. He walked other people’s dogs all the time, but he didn’t like the small breeds that were so popular nowadays. They were so small they made him nervous. He never knew how long they had to be walked to get the right amount of exercise. And, to

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make things worse, children would giggle when they saw him – tall, ill-shaven, and clad in a worn jacket – walking a tiny dog.

‘She’s absolutely precious. Let me take her.’

He had handed the woman a simple request form and contract, which she filled out and signed. Name: Sase Kentaro. Age: 42. Address: 4-15 Hisao, Mahoro City. Tada was not fond of women who wrote their husbands’ names on forms instead of their own.

From her large bag, the woman had pulled out some essentials: dog food, a bowl, fresh toilet sheets, the Chihuahua’s favourite toy. After the woman had given him instructions on the appropriate amount of dog food and assured him that long walks weren’t necessary, Tada agreed to care for the dog until noon on January 4.

He always asked his clients to pay in advance, and in cash. The woman had obliged without a fuss and left in a hurry, barely giving him time to hand her the receipt. She hadn’t bothered to take the dog out of its container to hold it, or even to say goodbye.

Thus, Tada had ended up spending New Year with a dog.

Just like the dogs he had seen on TV, the Chihuahua had large, misty eyes, and it was constantly shivering. Thinking that perhaps it was cold, Tada spread a blanket in the cardboard box that served as its bed; when that didn’t work, he played with it using the toy the woman had brought, assuming it was frightened of its unfamiliar surroundings. The trembling persisted. Tada grew concerned about its health and woke up repeatedly in the middle of the night to make sure it was alive.

But no matter how hard he tried, the dog continued to shudder. Tada realised that that was probably just the way Chihuahuas were. Finally, on January 2, he decided not to let the dog’s constant quivering distress him.

His nerves strained from having worried so much, Tada spent the day drinking and dozing after he’d taken the dog for a brief morning walk. It was a docile animal. When he called, ‘Chihuahua,’ it would come happily running over, but otherwise it was content being left on its own indoors.

Faint, scratchy sounds could be heard every time it walked across the dusty wooden floor of his flat.

It had been a while since he’d last shared his home with another living being. Perhaps because of this, Tada had a dream. In his dream, the pages

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of a thick book were turning in the wind, as if to beckon him. Waves of nostalgia gave way to a sense of discomfort, and Tada opened his eyes slightly.

The street outside his building was usually busy with drivers who wished to circumvent the bustle of Mahoro Station as they headed to the city centre.

But it was New Year, and traffic was sparse. The sound of pages flipping that he’d heard in his dream must have been that of an occasional car passing beneath his window. Still drowsy, he looked around the room absentmindedly. Chihuahua was in its cardboard bed, fast asleep.

He was preparing instant ramen for dinner when the phone rang in his office. This can’t be good, he thought. He filled Chihuahua’s bowl with dog food and nudged it toward the animal with his foot. The phone continued to ring. Reluctantly turning off the stove, Tada opened the curtain that separated his living space from his office, and reached for the phone.

‘Tada Handyman Shop.’

‘It’s Oka, from Yamashiro-cho.’ Tada was about to wish him Happy New Year, but Oka proceeded briskly: ‘You free tomorrow? I need you from 5:30 in the morning till about 8:30 at night.’

All day, when the New Year’s holiday wasn’t even over? Tada grew suspicious. ‘What will I be doing?’

‘I couldn’t get around to cleaning my yard and shed at the end of the year, so I need you to do that. But what I really want you to do is monitor a bus.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘We’ll talk more tomorrow. See you at 5:30.’

‘Oka-san, Oka-san,’ Tada hurriedly called into the receiver. ‘I’m taking care of somebody’s dog now, so I don’t know if I’ll be available for that long. . . .’

‘Bring the mutt with you. Just let it run around in the yard.’

As soon as he’d uttered the last syllable, Oka hung up. Tada slammed down the receiver and returned to the stove. Chihuahua had licked the bowl clean, and Tada’s ramen noodles had swollen into an ominous lump.

‘We’re going to work tomorrow, Chihuahua. Make sure you get enough sleep,’ said Tada. Chihuahua looked up at him, shivering, then stretched and went back to its bed. You’re the only one that listens to me, Tada thought. ‘Oh, you sweet little mutt,’ he sang as he added dry soup-mix to

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the pot. Stifling his sense of taste and touch, he wolfed down the noodles, which had bulged into a brain-like mass.

The next morning, before sunrise, Tada headed for Yamashiro-cho in his pickup. His cleaning tools were in the back of the truck, and Chihuahua was beside him on the passenger seat, quietly inside the pet carrier.

Yamashiro-cho was about a twenty-minute drive from Mahoro Station. It was an area of apartment buildings and farms, and Tada’s eyes were drawn to the large farmhouses presumably owned by land-owners as he drove past.

Oka’s house stood along one of the main roads. A giant tree spread its branches in the yard, as if to display the family’s long history in the region.

Oka had destroyed all his fields and turned them into apartments, and enjoyed a life of retirement supported by his rental income.

Tada parked his truck in the gravelled front yard. Oka was standing in a corner engaged in some sort of exercise, but he stopped swaying his arms and came over when he saw Tada get out. Again, Tada didn’t get a chance to deliver his New Year’s greetings. Picking up a folder from a garden rock and pressing it forcefully against Tada’s chest, Oka began to bellow orders without pausing for breath. ‘Impressive. Right on time. Clean the yard and shed as you always have. While you’re doing that, keep an eye on the buses.

That’s the main reason you’re here today. Hold this folder.’

Tada took it, his eyes moving back and forth between the sheets of paper inside and Oka’s bald head, gleaming under an outdoor lamp. There were two sheets of paper, both with a handwritten list of what looked like bus times on the left; the right side was blank.

‘You see that bus stop in front of our house?’ said Oka, pointing toward the road. Tada didn’t need to turn around to see what Oka was talking about.

Right outside the Oka residence was the Yamashiro-cho 2-chome stop, the buses coming and going in full view of the yard. ‘I have a feeling they’re running fewer buses than they’re supposed to. It’s been bothering me since last year. Whether going to the hospital or the station, the bus is an important means of transportation for elderly folks around here, including myself.’

Oka’s tone was serious. The bus that passed his house transported passengers from the Yamashiro apartment complex to Mahoro Station, by

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way of Mahoro Municipal Hospital. Tada’s mind was elsewhere – geez, it’s cold today, his breath is so white – but he didn’t let it show. ‘So what exactly should I be doing?’

‘While you’re cleaning, watch the bus stop like a hawk. I’ve written down the holiday bus times for you, so just fill up the right side of the paper with what time the buses actually arrive. In due course, you’ll see for yourself how corrupt that bus route is, full of deception and delays.’

‘I see,’ said Tada.

Receiving his wage for the day’s work, Tada put on his work gloves and unloaded a rake, rubbish bags and other items from his truck. Then, remembering, he called out to the older man, who was about to go back inside his house: ‘Can I let the dog out in the yard?’

‘Suit yourself. The first bus is scheduled to come at 5:50. I’m busy, so I’m counting on you. Gather evidence against Yokochu so we can show them up for the lazy bastards they are.’

Though Mahoro was technically part of Tokyo, its bus routes were, for some unknown reason, monopolised by the Yokohama Chuo Kotsu Bus Company, or Yokochu for short. Placing the folder on top of the gatepost, Tada thought to himself: Rich people ask for the strangest things. Through a window facing the yard, he could see Oka sprawled out in the living room, watching TV. It wasn’t fair, but he wasn’t paid to complain. Knowing this, Tada murmured, ‘I see’ once more, and spent the day cleaning the yard and shed, jotting down the bus arrival times and keeping an eye on Chihuahua, who was delighted to be able to run around outdoors.

The last bus passed Oka’s house at 8:30 p.m., heading for the station. It had grown dark a while before. Tada was ready to leave, having loaded his truck with his cleaning tools and the rubbish he’d collected. Letting out a sigh of exhaustion, he opened the front door with the folder in hand.

‘I’ve finished. Could you come and have a look?’

Oka appeared from the back of the house, his face flushed; he had apparently been drinking. The neatly trimmed yard was illuminated by the outdoor lamp. Peering out, Oka gave a satisfied nod. ‘Well, how’d it go?’

‘I’m sorry to have to say this, but the buses seemed to be running more or less on schedule, at least for today. There were a few delays due to traffic,

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but the total number of buses that passed coincided with the timetable you’d given me.’

‘That’s strange.’ Frowning, Oka took the folder from Tada. ‘Are you sure you didn’t miss any? How do I know your record is accurate?’

Then do it yourself, moron. Mentally strangling Oka, Tada collected himself and put on a smile. ‘I’m quite sure I didn’t miss any. For lunch, I ate the rice balls your wife made, sitting outside the gate with my eye on the road. And when I had to take a piss – excuse me, answer nature’s call – I used a plastic bottle in the corner of the yard, with my attention on the road the whole time. Shall I show you the bottle as proof of my vigilance?’

‘That won’t be necessary.’

‘All right then.’ There was no bottle; he had pissed on the roots of a camellia tree. ‘Well, I should get going. If there’s anything you need, just give me a call.’

The old man doesn’t know what he’s doing, Tada thought as he walked over to his truck. Bus drivers probably got paid extra for working over the New Year’s holiday, and that makes manpower readily available. If Oka really wanted confirmation of Yokochu’s dishonesty, the surveillance should have been conducted on an ordinary weekday. But Tada wasn’t about to offer such advice. What a stupid job, he thought; the first job of the year, at that. As he opened the driver’s door, he realised that the dog was missing.

‘Chihuahua, where’d you go?’ he called out in the dark yard. He waited for the dog to emerge; it did not. The sound of the wind in the trees made it difficult to guess where the creature might be. This is bad. Tada circled the yard, calling, ‘Chihuahua, Chihuahua’ in a hushed voice. The dog was nowhere to be seen.

‘This is why I can’t stand dogs with small brains,’ Tada muttered to himself. Assailed by the disturbing image of an animal splattered unrecognisably on the road, he hastily left the Oka estate and looked up and down the street. Cars were passing, but there was no sign of a canine casualty.

Then Tada caught sight of a figure sitting on a bench by the bus stop.

He approached the figure and was about to ask, ‘Have you seen a Chihuahua?’ but stopped. There was Chihuahua, in the arms of this stranger, a man in a black coat who was about the same age as Tada.

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Sensing Tada’s presence, the man looked up. The headlights of a passing car lit his face. His gaze was unsteady, as though he were fumbling blindly for a switch in a dark room, but it now focused on Tada. ‘Got a cigarette?’ he suddenly asked. Tada pulled out a pack from his jacket pocket and handed it to the man along with his ninety-nine-cent lighter.

‘Lucky Strikes,’ said the man. Holding Chihuahua in his right arm, he used his left hand to put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. ‘This dog yours, Tada?’

‘Yes.’ ‘That’s surprising.’ The man got up from the bench and placed both the cigarettes and the dog in Tada’s arms. Seemingly troubled by Tada’s vague reaction, the man frowned and tilted his head to one side, his cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. ‘You don’t know who I am, do you?’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Tada. He hadn’t known at first, but now he remembered.

‘You’re Gyoten, aren’t you?’

Gyoten Haruhiko had been Tada’s classmate back when they were students at Mahoro Secondary School. They spent three years together in the same classroom, yet had never spoken to each other. In fact, Gyoten never spoke to anyone. He got good grades and wasn’t bad-looking, so he was popular among the female students of other schools, who would hang around and wait at the school gate for a chance to see him. However, in his own school, Gyoten was known as an eccentric. He didn’t talk. He was stubbornly committed to being silent; teachers who called on him and classmates who approached him to discuss school-related business were invariably ignored.

Gyoten’s reticence was so thorough that, to everyone’s amazement, his voice was heard only once in the three years that Tada knew him. They were making model houses out of paper in an art class, and Gyoten was using the guillotine. A few boys who had been fooling around crashed into him, sending his right pinky flying into the air. ‘Ow,’ Gyoten said. Blood spurted like fireworks from the wound, and the classroom erupted in panic. Gyoten picked up his own finger from the floor. Tada could still picture Gyoten on that day, bending down as casually as though he were picking up some change.

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The school nurse rushed to the scene, and Gyoten was taken to hospital in an ambulance. Acting quickly, the doctors succeeded in reattaching Gyoten’s pinky. A few days later, he was back in school. The students who had been responsible for the accident had tears in their eyes as they apologised. But Gyoten, his right hand swathed in bandages, had gone back to being his silent, eccentric self.

Gyoten’s brief utterance of pain was the first and last time any of his classmates heard him speak. Those who hadn’t been present pretended not to care, saying they were glad not to have witnessed such an inauspicious event; still, they seemed disappointed, like sailors who had missed out on hearing the song of the Sirens. Gyoten was avoided more than ever, an unfathomable organism no one could relate to.

‘Yup, it’s me,’ Gyoten said, raising his right palm in front of Tada’s eyes.

Even in the dark, a white scar was visible, forming a ring around the base of his little finger. ‘What are you doing here?’

Instead of answering, Tada asked, ‘What about you?’

‘I was visiting my parents for the holidays. They live around here. Now I’m on my way to the station.’

‘You missed the last bus.’

‘I know. I couldn’t get on it because I was holding your dog.’

Tada looked at Gyoten, who flicked his cigarette butt away and smiled, his mouth in the shape of a crescent moon.

‘You’ve changed, Gyoten.’

‘You think? Not as much as you.’

‘I’ve got my car. I’ll give you a lift.’

Tada led the way to his pickup. He had noticed a while ago that Gyoten, clad in jeans and the kind of coat sported by businessmen, had his bare feet in a pair of brown acupressure sandals. Though Gyoten’s appearance disconcerted Tada, he decided not to think about it: their encounter was a fleeting one, and would end the moment they arrived at the station. The warmth of the dog in his arms made him feel a renewed sense of relief at having found it. He tried not to pay attention to Gyoten, who was humming loudly as he trailed behind.

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Gyoten climbed into the passenger seat, with Chihuahua in the pet carrier on his lap. ‘So you own this truck, Tada? What kind of work do you do? Huh? What do you do?’

He wasn’t going to shut up until he received an answer. Surrendering, Tada took one hand from the wheel to pull out his business card case from the hip pocket of his work trousers. He handed the case to Gyoten, who took one out. On the front of the card were Tada’s name and the name of his shop; on the back, his address and phone numbers. Gyoten lifted the card, holding it against the light from the street lamps that whizzed past.

‘You own a ramen shop?’

‘Why in the hell would you think that?’ Tada decided he needed a smoke to steady his nerves, and puffed away intensely without even opening a window. Gyoten held out his right hand; Tada placed his pack of Lucky Strikes on the outstretched palm.

‘You don’t have the best name for running a business,’ Gyoten said, slowly breathing out smoke toward the car’s ceiling. ‘Don’t your customers say things like, ‘Hey Mr Handyman, your name’s Tada, just do it for me for free’?’

Tada responded with the cruel silence of a taut whip, but Gyoten, unabashed, went on. ‘So why’d you name it Tada Handyman Shop? The character you used for ‘shop’ makes it sound like a ramen joint. You should’ve called it Tada Handyman Services. But then again, combining Tada with the word ‘service’ really makes it look like you’d help people out for nothing.’

They were approaching a roundabout that led to the station. After enduring Gyoten’s babbling for almost twenty minutes, Tada finally opened his mouth. ‘Gyoten, I have a favour to ask.’

‘Your wish is my command.’

‘Keep your goddamn mouth shut until we get there.’

‘I’ll do my best to fulfil your request. But before I stop talking, will you do me a favour too?’

‘What do you want?’

‘Let me stay at your place tonight.’

‘Not going to happen.’

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‘Fine,’ said Gyoten. He shifted his gaze back to Tada’s card, thoroughly examining both sides. ‘On cold nights like this, my pinky hurts, like it’s going to get ripped off.’

The light turned red, and Tada hit the brakes. The only sound that could be heard was Chihuahua whimpering. Gyoten tapped the container lightly to console the animal, then pulled out the built-in ashtray to extinguish the third cigarette he’d taken from Tada’s pack.

The pickup curved around the traffic circle in front of Mahoro Station and came to a stop at the south exit. Swarms of people were pouring out: families that had been doing their holiday shopping, and couples probably returning from their New Year visits to shrines. Gyoten unbuckled his seatbelt, got out, and put the carrier with Chihuahua inside back on the passenger seat.

‘I was just joking, man. My pinky’s fine. No pain; moves like it used to.’

The door closed, but Tada stayed where he was. Gyoten was lying. When he’d pulled out the ashtray, Tada had seen his pinky stiffen awkwardly. It had also been hard not to notice its colour, strikingly pale compared to his other fingers.

The business card case had been tossed onto the dashboard. Reaching over to put it back in his pocket, Tada glanced at the red pet carrier on the passenger seat. Abandoned beside it was the card that Gyoten had pulled out.

Tada got out of the truck and ran up the stairs to the station. Pushing through the crowds, he rushed to the turnstiles: Gyoten wasn’t there. He also scanned the ticket vending machines, but Gyoten was nowhere to be found. Was he hidden in the flood of people descending from the platforms?

Tada went back to the turnstiles and called, ‘Gyoten!’

‘Looking for me?’ The voice came from behind. Taken aback, Tada turned around and saw Gyoten leaning against a column, both hands in his coat pockets. He dangled one sandal loosely from his bare toes, making it swing back and forth as if to tease Tada. ‘You’re so naïve. I didn’t think you would really come after me.’

Tada wasn’t angry that he had been tested. He was more relieved at having found Gyoten in time. Letting out a deep breath, Tada said, ‘Remember, just for tonight.’

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‘If you hadn’t turned up in ten minutes, I was going to go crash at your office anyway,’ said Gyoten unemotionally, leading the way back to the pickup.

‘How were you going to find it when you forgot to take my card with you?’

‘I didn’t forget. It seems you’re the one that’s forgotten. I was born and raised in Mahoro too, you know. An address near the station? All I need is one look to figure out where it is.’

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No Place Like A nursing home? Hell, no! I’ll never go, my father says, damned waiting room for death. But my mother says she’s ready, she’s tired of endless chores, the thieves, the cockroaches. Let me rest, please, she begs. He snaps back, you go if you want. I’ll die here! – to the woman married to him for sixty-two years, who never takes a step without him, and he – near-blind, refuses to feel his way around the house but instead slams into walls in broad daylight. We’re fine, they say, stop worrying. I nod into the phone, but I know that’s impossible. In their familiar darkness they move like tortoises, worn carapaces heavier than they can carry, step painfully through rooms that shudder with the passing of truck and bus on the broadened road below. I see their silvery tracks gleam

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for a second in the moonlight or in the sweep of garish headlights. Backs stiff, they watch in the living room, listen for footsteps, ears tuned to pick up the sound of my uneven

TV

gait on the landing. Instincts honed to hear the slightest stir above the constant din, our not-so often arrivals at the turn of the concrete stair, the thump of luggage, trip of tired feet. But wary always of strangers, drug dealers at the door, the landlord’s henchmen, the night’s given dangers, their sleep is restless. Goodnight, I say, sleep well, my darlings, I say, as I imagine them turning out the light, settling the sheets to cover their bodies, mouths moving, softly praying. Sending blessings to each other, and to me – across the oceans. How desperately I pray that the heaviest knock will never fall upon our doors.

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Contributors Contribut ors Contribut ors

CORINNE ELYSSE ADAMS is a story-collector, writer, folk musician, and teacher. She completed her undergraduate degree at Sophia University in Tokyo and her master’s in poetry at the University of Edinburgh. When not assaulting the keys of her typewriter, she plays Irish fiddle, studies Japanese folk singing, performs with traditional music projects, and works on her multimedia storytelling project at threadwhispers.wordpress.com.

MEHVASH AMIN is a writer, poet, editor and publisher (Broken Leg Publications). Her poems have been published in journals such as Vallum, Sugar Mule and The Missing Slate, as well as in Abhay Khanna’s anthology, Capitals. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her poem ‘Karachi’. She is the force behind The Aleph Review, a yearly anthology of creative writing from Pakistan and elsewhere.

INDRAN AMIRTHANAYAGA writes poetry in English, Spanish, French, Haitian Creole and Portuguese. His Elephants of Reckoning won the 1994 Paterson Poetry Prize in the United States and his poem ‘Juarez’ won the Juegos Florales of Guyamas, Mexico in 2006. His latest book in English is a poetic history of the Sri Lankan war, titled Uncivil War. In French, his most recent book is Aller-Retour Au Bord de la Mer and, in Spanish, Ventana Azul. A new book in Creole, written with Alex LaGuerre, Pwezi a Kat Men, will appear in April 2017.

NATASCHA BRUCE has translated stories for Wasafiri, Pathlight, PEN Atlas and BooksActually’s Gold Standard (Math Paper Press, 2016). She was joint winner of the 2015 Bai Meigui Award and recipient of ALTA’s 2016 Emerging Translator Mentorship for a Singaporean language. She lives in Taipei, where she’s working on Lonely Face, a novel by Yeng Pway Ngon, for Balestier Press.

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Contributors

ELLEN CHOW currently teaches in the Department of Translation at Lingnan University. She is also studying for a PhD on the English translation of Hong Kong Chinese poetry at Durham University. She is interested in literary translation and has been a freelance commercial translator for ten years. As a native Hongkonger, Chow loves movies and the city’s literary gems.

MONA DASH is of Indian origin and is settled in London. She writes fiction and poetry and her work has been anthologised widely and published in international journals. Dash has a Masters in Creative Writing (with distinction) from the London Metropolitan University. Her work includes two poetry collections, Dawn-Drops (Writer’s Workshop, India, 2001) and A Certain Way (Skylark Publications, UK, 2017) and a novel, Untamed Heart (Tara India Research Press, 2016).

TISHANI DOSHI is an award-winning poet, novelist and dancer. In 2006, her book of poems Countries of the Body won the UK’s Forward Poetry Prize for best first collection. She is also the recipient of an Eric Gregory award and a winner of the All-India Poetry Competition. Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods (poems), is forthcoming.

NICKY HARMAN is based in the UK and translates fiction, literary non-fiction, and occasionally poetry, by a wide range of contemporary Chinese authors. She is co-chair of the Translators Association (Society of Authors, UK), gives translation workshops and organises translation-focused cultural events. She also works on Paper Republic, mentors new translators, and judges translation competitions.

HO SOK FONG is the author of two short-story collections in Chinese, Maze Carpet (Aquarius, 2012) and Lake like a Mirror (Aquarius, 2014). Her literary awards include the Chiu Ko Fiction Prize (2016), the 25th China Times Short Story Prize, and the 30th United Press Short Story Prize. Originally from Kedah, Malaysia, she is currently a PhD candidate in Chinese Language & Literature at NTU Singapore.

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Contributors

ZILKA JOSEPH has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Kenyon Review Online, Quiddity, Review Americana, Gastronomica, and Cheers to Muses: Works by Asian American Women. Lands I Live In and What Dread, her chapbooks, were nominated for a PEN America and a Pushcart award respectively. Her book of poems Sharp Blue Search of Flame was published by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, in 2016.

KIM SEONG JOONG was born in Seoul in 1975. She made her debut in 2008 with the short story ‘Please Return My Chair’, which earned her the Joongang New Writers Award. After her debut, she published two short-story collections: Comedian in 2012, and Border Market in 2015. Her first novel was serialised in the renowned Korean literary magazine, Munhakdongne, and will be released in 2017.

KIM SOOM was born in 1974. She has published numerous novels and short-story collections including Noodles, Iron, Liver and Gallbladder, The Women Who Sew, The Shoe, and One. She debuted in 1997 as the winner of the Daejeon Ilbo New Writers Award. Her other awards include the Hyundai Literary Prize and the Yi Sang Literary Award.

STELLA KIM is an avid reader who works as a freelance translator and interpreter. She is the recipient of the 2014 Korean Literature Translation Award for New Career Translators and the 47th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards. Her translations have appeared in ASIA (Magazine of Asian Literature) and the Asia Literary Review. She is currently working on her first book-length translation.

PINGTA KU grew up in Tainan, Taiwan. He completed a PhD thesis on James Joyce’s Ulysses at University College London and his translation of Yijun Luo’s Tangut Inn received a PEN Presents Award in 2017. He is currently teaching English literature at National Taiwan University and establishing himself as a Chinese-to-English translator with a focus on contemporary Taiwanese literary fiction.

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Contributors

YIJUN LUO was born in 1967 in Taiwan to a ‘mainlander’ father and an ‘islander’ mother. Since his acclaimed debut work, Corps of Scarlet Letters, Luo has gained renown for his witty prose, labyrinthine narrative, and idiosyncratic hybrid of I-novel and magic realism. Luo received the prestigious HKBU Red Chamber Award in 2012 for his magnum opus Tangut Inn.

ZACH MACDONALD is a native of Canada who taught English in Japan and South Korea before moving to his current home in Bangkok, Thailand. He is working on a collection of East and Southeast Asia-based short fiction, and plugging away at a novel set in his home province of Nova Scotia. His work has previously been published in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal.

ASUKA MINAMOTO is a freelance translator currently based in Seoul, South Korea. She works in English, Japanese and Korean, and has more than twelve years of experience translating material for clients including Sony and Samsung.

In 2016, she won second prize in the second JLPP (Japanese Literature Publishing Project) International Translation Competition.

SHION MIURA is one of the most prominent writers of contemporary Japanese literature. Born in 1976, she began writing while still a student at Waseda University, encouraged by an editor who recognised her talent. In 2006, she was awarded the prestigious Naoki Prize for The Handymen of Mahoro. She is also the author of Fune wo Amu, winner of the 2012 Japan Booksellers’ Award.

NORMAN ERIKSON PASARIBU was born in Jakarta in 1990. He holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the Indonesian State College of Accounting and worked for Indonesian’s tax office for almost six years before resigning in 2016 to pursue writing. His debut poetry collection Sergius Mencari Bacchus (Sergius Seeks Bacchus) won first prize in the 2015 Jakarta Arts Council Poetry Manuscript Competition. The book was also shortlisted in the 2016 Khatulistiwa Literary Award for Poetry.

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SIMON PATTON translates Chinese literature. He lives with his partner, two cats and Sealyham the Terrier near Chinaman Creek in Central Victoria, Australia. He recently spent two months in Tuen Mun, Hong Kong, as translatorin-residence at Lingnan University.

EVE SHI is Indonesian, a lifelong fangirl and a writer. She has published five novels in Indonesian, with more coming in 2017, and has written several short stories in English. Since 2011 she has been the Indonesian municipal liaison for NaNoWriMo. You can follow her on Twitter at @Eve_Shi.

SUN YISHENG, a young writer currently living in Beijing, is a keen autodidact whose reading ranges from classical Chinese literature to the works of William Faulkner and other Western writers. Despite having published only one book, Dragonfields, a collection of short stories (Bai Hua Wen Yi Publishers, 2016), he has already attracted considerable attention, both within China and beyond.

Sun’s work has now appeared in Chutzpah!, Words without Borders, Asymptote and other literary journals.

LAUREL TAYLOR is a second-year MFA candidate at the University of Iowa’s Literary Translation program, where she is a recipient of the Iowa Arts Fellowship. She is currently the Editor-in-chief of Exchanges magazine and has also contributed to Asymptote. Her work on Ainu poet Yaeko Batchelor was presented at the 2016 American Literary Translation Association Conference.

SHIBASAKI TOMOKA is the author of more than twenty novels, short-story collections and essay collections, and has co-authored two additional books. Her novel Sono machi no ima wa won the Minister of Education’s Newcomers’ Award in 2006, and her acclaimed novel Haru no niwa was awarded the Akutagawa Prize in 2014. Its English translation, Spring Garden, is now available in the UK through Pushkin Press.

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TIFFANY TSAO is a writer, translator and literary critic. She holds a PhD in English from UC-Berkeley and currently lives in Sydney, Australia. Her writing and translations have appeared in numerous publications, including The Sydney Review of Books, LONTAR, Cordite Poetry Review, and Asymptote. Her translation of Eka Kurniawan’s story ‘Caronang’ was nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize.

Her debut novel The Oddfits was published in 2016.

JASON WOODRUFF is a literary translator based in his home town of Salt Lake City, Utah. His translations have appeared in Asia Literary Review and Asymptote Journal, where his translation of Kim Kyung-uk’s story ‘Spray’ won runner-up in the 2016 Close Approximations translation contest.

ISABEL YAP writes fiction and poetry, works in the tech industry, and drinks tea. Born and raised in Manila, she has also lived in California, Tokyo and London. In 2013, she attended the Clarion Writers’ Workshop. Her work has appeared on Tor.com, Book Smugglers Publishing, Uncanny Magazine, Shimmer Magazine, Year’s Best Weird Fiction: Vol. 2, and elsewhere. She is @visyap on Twitter and her website is www.isabelyap.com.

YU JIAN is one of China’s major contemporary poets. He has published several collections of poetry and a five-volume collection of poetry and essays. His poems have been awarded prizes in China and abroad, and widely translated. In late 2017, a new collection of poems dealing with the Cultural Revolution will be published in Taiwan.

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Essential Reading | Subscribe to the

Register and subscribe online for access to exclusive new material, gems from the archive and regular updates: www.asialiteraryreview.com Email Subscriptions@AsiaLiteraryReview.Com Visit the ALR Bookshop to buy books by authors featured in this and other issues www.asialiteraryreview.com/alr-bookshop Keep in touch on twitter @AsiaLitReview facebook.com/AsiaLitReview

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Sun Yat-sen University Center for English-language Creative Writing The Sun Yat-sen University Center for English-language Creative Writing is the first and currently the only one of its kind in China for teaching and promoting creative writing in English as a second/foreign language. It combines the teaching of English with creative writing techniques to enable students to write about China from an insider’s perspective.

Under the Sun Yat-sen University Creative Writing Education Program, the Center organizes readings by international writers and a book club to promote the reading and writing of world literature. From October 2015, it will start the Sun Yat-sen University International Writers’ Residency, which moves from the campuses of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou and Zhuhai to Jiangmen in Guangdong Province and Yangshuo in Guangxi Autonomous Region, and gives between ten and fifteen writers the time and space to write as well as providing them with the opportunity to get to know Chinese people and culture. Contact: daifan@mail.sysu.edu.cn

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Asia House Bagri Foundation

The Asia House Bagri Foundation Literature Festival is the only pan-Asian literature festival in the UK. Join us this year to meet poets inspired by social issues; short-story writers engaging with the human condition; historians surfacing long-forgotten pasts, journalists living on the edge and novelists taking on the world‌ Asia House | 63 New Cavendish Street London W1G 7LP +44 (0)20 7307 5454

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This issue of the ALR pays tribute to the indispensable but unsung heroes of the literary world – translators. Their efforts encourage readers to expand horizons, open hearts and make connections. We and English PEN jointly organised a competition that invited translations of noteworthy authors who have not yet had a complete work published in English. This volume features five of the finalists and captivating works by other writers in the region.

No. 33 SPRING 2017

Featuring: Lake Like a Mirror by Ho Sok Fong, translated by Natascha Bruce Tangut Inn by Yijun Luo, translated by Pingta Ku Star Sign by Tomoka Shibasaki, translated by Laurel Taylor Sergius Seeks Bacchus by Norman Erikson Pasaribu, translated by Tiffany Tsao The Shoe by Soom Kim, translated by Jason Woodruff Chilling stories selected from Asian Monsters, compiled by Margrét Helgadóttir ‘The ALR fills an important gap. We’ve grown used to reading about Asia. But through a kaleidoscope of stories, essays, poems, polemics and photographs, finally we can hear Asians talking about themselves.’ – David Pilling, former Asia Editor, Financial Times

Fiction | Non-fiction | Essay | Poetry

Asia Literary Review | Essential Reading

asialiteraryreview.com

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