Asymptote

Scroll to Info & Navigation

Recommended:A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, by Roland Barthestranslated from the French by Richard HowardPenguin (1977) “The necessity for this book is to be found in the following consideration: that the lover’s discourse is today of an extreme solitude. This discourse is spoken, perhaps, by thousands of subjects (who knows?), but warranted by no one; it is completely forsaken by the surrounding languages: ignored, disparaged, or derided by them, severed not only from authority but also from the mechanisms of authority (sciences, techniques, arts). Once a discourse is thus driven by its own momentum into the backwater of the “unreal,” exiled from all gregarity, it has no recourse but to become the site, however exiguous, of an affirmation. That affirmation is, in short, the subject of the book which begins here …”AP

Recommended:
A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, by Roland Barthes
translated from the French by Richard Howard
Penguin (1977)

“The necessity for this book is to be found in the following consideration: that the lover’s discourse is today of an extreme solitude. This discourse is spoken, perhaps, by thousands of subjects (who knows?), but warranted by no one; it is completely forsaken by the surrounding languages: ignored, disparaged, or derided by them, severed not only from authority but also from the mechanisms of authority (sciences, techniques, arts). Once a discourse is thus driven by its own momentum into the backwater of the “unreal,” exiled from all gregarity, it has no recourse but to become the site, however exiguous, of an affirmation. That affirmation is, in short, the subject of the book which begins here …”

AP

Recommended:Wolf Totem, by Jiang Rongtranslated from the Chinese by Howard GoldblattPenguin Group (2008)“Wolf Totem is a semi-autobiographical novel about the experiences of a young student from Beijing who finds himself sent down to the countryside of Inner Mongolia in 1967, at the height of China’s Cultural Revolution.”More on this book here. AP

Recommended:
Wolf Totem, by Jiang Rong
translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt
Penguin Group (2008)

“Wolf Totem is a semi-autobiographical novel about the experiences of a young student from Beijing who finds himself sent down to the countryside of Inner Mongolia in 1967, at the height of China’s Cultural Revolution.”

More on this book here.

AP

Translated from the Russian by Bela Shayevich and Ainsley Morse, I LIVE I SEE is a testament to Vsevelod Nekrasov’s lifelong conviction that art can not only withstand, but undermine oppression.Go here for more information on this new collection of selected poems.Go here to read one of Nekrasov’s poems from this collection, previously featured at Asymptote.AP

Translated from the Russian by Bela Shayevich and Ainsley Morse, I LIVE I SEE is a testament to Vsevelod Nekrasov’s lifelong conviction that art can not only withstand, but undermine oppression.

Go here for more information on this new collection of selected poems.
Go here to read one of Nekrasov’s poems from this collection, previously featured at Asymptote.

AP

“The library [at Guantánamo Bay] has about 18,000 books — roughly 9,000 titles — the bulk of which are in Arabic, along with a smaller selection of periodicals, DVDs and video games. Religious books are the most popular … but there is also a well-thumbed collection of Western fare — from Arabic translations of books like “News of a Kidnapping,” by Gabriel García Márquez, and “The Kiss,” by Danielle Steel, to a sizable English-language room, which boasts familiar titles like the “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings” series, “Watership Down” and the “Odyssey.” Some detainees arrived knowing English, while a few others have learned over time. Most have now been held without trial for over a decade.”Read more about the library’s collection here.AP

“The library [at Guantánamo Bay] has about 18,000 books — roughly 9,000 titles — the bulk of which are in Arabic, along with a smaller selection of periodicals, DVDs and video games. Religious books are the most popular … but there is also a well-thumbed collection of Western fare — from Arabic translations of books like “News of a Kidnapping,” by Gabriel García Márquez, and “The Kiss,” by Danielle Steel, to a sizable English-language room, which boasts familiar titles like the “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings” series, “Watership Down” and the “Odyssey.” Some detainees arrived knowing English, while a few others have learned over time. Most have now been held without trial for over a decade.”

Read more about the library’s collection here.

AP

This “curious reading hovel is … a design collaboration between Venezuelan architects Marcelo Ertorteguy and Sara Valente…. The couple built the library at the invitation of the Architectural League of New York and the organizers of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. It is one of 10 mini-libraries now scattered in the ‘hoods below 8th Street, which will serve printed words to the public until they disappear in September.”Find out more about these “world’s tiniest libraries” here. AP

This “curious reading hovel is … a design collaboration between Venezuelan architects Marcelo Ertorteguy and Sara Valente…. The couple built the library at the invitation of the Architectural League of New York and the organizers of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. It is one of 10 mini-libraries now scattered in the ‘hoods below 8th Street, which will serve printed words to the public until they disappear in September.”

Find out more about these “world’s tiniest libraries” here.

AP

Introducing PENGUIN LIBRARY wallpaper.“The PENGUIN LIBRARY wallpaper is a collage of front covers of those iconic early paperbacks from this famous publishing house and includes Ariel, the very first Penguin paperback published in 1935. The book covers were chosen for their diversity of colour and to illustrate the breadth of Penguin’s publishing backlist. Great care was taken in the design to truly represent the original paperbacks in all their, sometimes well-read and a little worn, glory. The resulting PENGUIN LIBRARY wallpaper is a glorious colourful ‘conversational piece’ which we hope will be received with as much affection as the books themselves.”Read more about it here. AP

Introducing PENGUIN LIBRARY wallpaper.

“The PENGUIN LIBRARY wallpaper is a collage of front covers of those iconic early paperbacks from this famous publishing house and includes Ariel, the very first Penguin paperback published in 1935. The book covers were chosen for their diversity of colour and to illustrate the breadth of Penguin’s publishing backlist. Great care was taken in the design to truly represent the original paperbacks in all their, sometimes well-read and a little worn, glory. The resulting PENGUIN LIBRARY wallpaper is a glorious colourful ‘conversational piece’ which we hope will be received with as much affection as the books themselves.”

Read more about it here.


AP