Image: Krista Nogueras, Exquisite Risk, 2020, gas-fired stoneware and vitrified china.
Our October 2021 issue is devoted to poetry and prose written in five contact languages, or creoles, of Southeast Asia. These languages, most of which are today at risk of extinction, arose out of both intra- and intercontinental linguistic encounters between different language communities, often in the closely connected contexts of trade and colonialism. The seven texts presented here explore the unique cultures and communities that developed alongside these hybrid languages, and many demonstrate a particular preoccupation with themes of heritage and belonging. Writing in Sri Lanka Portuguese, Magin Mario Balthazaar offers two poems on love, leisure, and music; the late poet Francis C. Macansantos, writing in Zamboangueño Chavacano, traces the desperation of a junk dealer and ponders the human relationship to the ocean. Sara Frederica Santa Maria re-creates a chilling Melaka Portuguese folktale she heard as a child, while poets Nironjini Pillay, Shagina Bhalan, Nadarajan Mudalier, and Mahendran Pillay contribute a traditional pantun in Chetti Malay. H. Miguel de Senna Fernandes pays homage to Macau in a poem written in Patuá, and guest editor Stefanie Shamila Pillai takes readers on a lively tour of the historical trade routes and bustling port cities that gave rise to these remarkable languages. With translations by Sara Frederica Santa Maria, Francis C. Macansantos, Nurul Huda Hamzah, Hugo C. Cardoso, Stefanie Shamila Pillai, and H. Miguel de Senna Fernandes.
The Voices of Contact Languages in Asia: An Introduction
For multilingual writers, choosing to write in their heritage languages can be seen as an expression of agency, an active choice to communicate in a nondominant language.
The Gut Demons
“When you go in search of food, you must do so at night, and you must only go with your head and intestines.”
bilingual
Eyes of the Wave
Eyes of blue-green watch you, / Dimpled smiles hidden in water.
bilingual
Mr. Marcos (A Soliloquy)
The moon taunts, smiles, / “Come into my parlor, old man.”
bilingual
Pantun
We are known as the Chetti of Melaka, / Guardians of tradition and culture.
bilingual
The Land of Our Lives
The fish sing over here, / The fish sing.
bilingual
My Beloved Lady
There will be no trouble, life will be good, / Come and dance the káfriinha.
bilingual
Macau, Our Homeland
A tiny land of a thousand wonders / A flower for anyone in grief
bilingual
Book Reviews
Mario Levrero’s “The Luminous Novel”: Writing as a Spiritual Experience
Reviewed by Isaura Contreras
In a work that takes the form of a diary and a novel, Uruguayan writer Mario Levrero contemplates failure and procrastination to ultimately affirm writing as an act of freedom.
“Psychedelic,” “Profound,” “a Feminist Classic”: Magda Cârneci’s “FEM” Challenges Definitions
Reviewed by Jozefina Komporaly
Blurring genre boundaries, Cârneci's debut novel brings to life a mesmerizing landscape of female desire and frustration. As the fragmented yet captivating narrative examines the twin subjects of love and loss, readers are confronted with the ultimate feminist agenda of a woman’s right to choose, together with the numerous hurdles and dilemmas associated with it
“Last Summer in the City,” Gianfranco Calligarich’s Ode to a Long-Gone Lifestyle, Hits a False Note
Reviewed by Allison Grimaldi-Donahue
Set in a deserted Rome during a hot and melancholy August, this 1973 novel now touted as a classic rehashes a familiar theme within Italian literature and film: a country and art of malaise. At turns beautiful and frustrating, it ultimately feels like a pastiche of the works it attempts to keep company with.