What do we need from each other? What do we gain if we give? At the dawn of a new age of tariffs, the dominant mode of exchange has become a kind of brute transactionalism—before one hands over anything, one must demand something of equal value in return. But what if simply giving is the better way to flourish—the way to a richer commons? It is in this spirit that we proudly unveil “The Gift.” Gathering new work from as far afield as Lesotho, Senegal, Guyana, Paraguay, and Ukraine, our Spring 2025 edition centers the generosity of translation—an act that Youn Kyung Hee, invoking Paul Celan, rightly compares to a gift: “For Celan, the event of poesis goes beyond receiving a gift from some unnamed sender; it also comprises the work of sending it out once more, a transmission bottled in glass.” How fitting, then, that our interview section, which usually features major authors in the world literature canon (such as the recently deceased Mario Vargas Llosa, in our Spring 2018 issue), cedes the floor to two of the most prominent practitioners of the art working today: Robin Moger, acclaimed translator of contemporary and classical Arabic literature, and Anton Hur, who went from debuting as a translator in these pages nine years ago to becoming the Booker International Prize-nominated voice in English of Korean authors like Sang Young Park. Hur’s interview pairs perfectly with our Korean Literature Feature, whose many highlights include Jeong Ho-seung’s bittersweet “sorrow by special delivery” (translated with force and sensitivity by frequent contributor Brother Anthony of Taizé) and talented director-writer Lee Chang-dong’s absurd comedy (brilliantly rendered by Heinz Insu Fenkl and Yoosup Chang) in which a scrounging couple on vacation return to find their house burgled. We assembled this Feature in partnership with LTI Korea, an organization that followers of our ongoing series spotlighting institutional advocates of a country’s literature know more than a little about, thanks to my interview with Sooyun Yum from Fall 2021. This issue, I speak with Annette Bach from the Danish Arts Foundation and with Tiia Strandén from Finnish Literature Exchange, taking the total number of such Q&As to ten.

Elsewhere in this edition beautifully illustrated by South Korean guest artist GLOO / Yejin Lee, the theme of gifts—often passed down from the generation prior—persists. The opening trio of pieces (Men and Bread, Long Shadows, and Taxidermy) each consider the tendrils of paternal legacy, but the title of most dad-haunted narrator might be a contest between Pierric Bailly tracing the real-life events leading up to his father’s death in the woods and Song Seung Eon’s imaginary fisherman addressing his macabre haul (“Skull, are you my father? Are you something that was my father?”). In Christopher Carter Sanderson’s sparkling update of Anton Chekhov’s drama The Gull, by contrast, Treplev wrestles with having a celebrity for a mother. (“On her own, she’s a sexy young actress. When I’m near, she looks like a soccer mom.”) Monica Ong—whose visual poems drawing on astronomy have been featured in  Scientific American, among other places—likens her parents to intrepid “cosmonauts” for migrating from their native Philippines to a new home in the US. This grateful feeling of belonging is acutely missing from the recently displaced international student narrator of Clara Park’s contribution to our now recurring Outsiders Feature; unable to adjust to her new environment, she finds kinship in a gumiho (fox-spirit) she can’t resist feeding—with gruesome consequences. Her erasure finds an echo in Jonathan C Chou’s heartbreaking “Hearth,” in which text from early 20th century immigration case files is spliced together with historical photos and maps of California and the American Southwest, obliquely charting the archival silences imposed on the Chinese-American community. Finally, against the backdrop of brutal deportations from the US, poet Judith Santopietro calls attention to the gifts inherent even in the most dangerous of international journeys, juxtaposing a glimpse of black orchids from atop a freight train with the eventual hardship of “distributing food and christmas gifts” in a foreign land. Too often portrayed as mere victims, Santopietro’s poem reminds us of the agency of immigrants, inviting us to recognize their journeys as choices they have made, and to consider that these, too, may be gifts, if we allow that possibility.

Apart from its sheer abundance, this edition is noteworthy for another reason: It will be the first not to include a Criticism section. This was precipitated by the realization that since our monthly What’s New in Translation (WNiT) column expanded in September to include reviews of at least nine new titles (April’s installment, released three days ago, hosted coverage of a whopping fifteen), we might as well host all our reviews in the blog—the monthly schedule of WNiT being better suited to keeping one’s finger on the pulse of international letters (so make sure you bookmark our daily blog and follow us there). A new section—which we hope will offer deeper engagement with issues surrounding world literature—will take its place in either July or October 2025; be among the first to hear about the call for submissions by subscribing to our newsletter, following us on Facebook, X, Instagram, and Threads. In the meantime, you’re welcome to submit to our other regular categories—including our Outsiders Feature, which accepts original English-language submissions; not only do we guarantee a one-month turnaround for outcomes, we also offer editorial feedback for a small additional fee. For World Book Day coming up on April 23, why not sign up to the Asymptote Book Club, the only Book Club dedicated to international literature, curated by the same award-winning team behind the magazine—or even make it a gift for the graduate in your life? Before signing off, I just want to say: launching an issue themed on gifts feels like a full-circle moment. I was recommended Lewis Hyde’s The Gift by my sculpture professor Richard Fishman in the early aughts; its discourse around the “soul-reviving” properties of gifts has stayed with me and may even have inspired the founding of this very journal. Though sustaining the magazine as the only full-time member through the past fourteen years has been difficult, today I'm simply grateful for the many gifts the journal has given me. If Asymptote has been a gift to you too, consider helping us stick around so that it may be a gift to others down the road. Remember: the best way to support us is to join us as a sustaining or masthead member (and signing up only takes three minutes, but the good it does reverberates through time). 

—Lee Yew Leong, Editor-in-Chief

Editorial Team for Issue April 2025

Editor-in-Chief: Lee Yew Leong (Thailand/Singapore)

Assistant Managing Editors: Ella Dailey (France/USA), Hilary Ilkay (Canada), Daljinder Johal (UK), Kathryn Raver (France/USA), and Alex Tan (USA/Singapore)

Section Editors:
Lee Yew Leong (Thailand/Singapore)
Caridad Svich (USA/UK)
Ian Ross Singleton (USA)
Heather Green (USA)
Danielle Pieratti (USA)

Senior Assistant Editors: Chiara Gilberti (Germany/Italy) and Michelle Chan Schmidt (Ireland)

Assistant Editors: Marguerite Alley (USA), Sam Bowden (USA), Terézia Klasová (Czech Republic), Sophie Grace Lellman (USA), Willem Marx (Italy/USA), Catherine Xin Xin Yu (Canada/Italy), Tiffany Troy (USA), Vuslat Demirkoparan (USA), Daniel Yadin (USA), Junyi Zhou (USA), and Lin Chia-Wei (Taiwan) 

Assistant Interview Editor: Sarah Gear

Contributing Editors: Ellen Elias-Bursac (USA), Aamer Hussein (UK), Sim Yee Chiang (Singapore), Dylan Suher (USA), and Adrian West (USA)

Art Director: Lee Yew Leong (Thailand/Singapore)

Editor-at-large, Bulgaria: Andriana Hamas
Editor-at-large, Croatia: Kristina Gadze
Editor-at-large, Greece: Christina Chatzitheodorou
Editors-at-large, Guatemala: José García Escobar, Rubén Lopéz, and Miranda Mazariegos
Editor-at-large, Hong Kong: Charlie Ng Chak-Kwan
Editors-at-large, India: Sayani Sarkar
Editor-at-large, Kenya: Wambua Muindi
Editor-at-large, North Macedonia: Sofija Popovska
Editors-at-large, Mexico: René Esaú Sánchez and Alan Mendoza Sosa
Editor-at-large, Palestine: Carol Khoury
Editor-at-large, Philippines: Alton Melvar M. Dapanas
Editor-at-large, Romania and Moldova: MARGENTO
Editor-at-Large, Spain: Marina García Pardavilla
Editor-at-Large, Sweden: Linnea Gradin
Editor-at-Large, USA: Mary Noorlander
Editor-at-large, Uzbekistan: Filip Noubel
Editor-at-large, Vietnamese Diaspora: Thuy Dinh


Masthead for Issue April 2025

Fiction and Interview: Lee Yew Leong
Poetry: Danielle Pieratti
Nonfiction: Ian Ross Singleton
Drama: Caridad Svich
Visual: Heather Green
Outsiders, Institutional Advocates Take Questions, and Korean Literature Special Features: Lee Yew Leong
Illustrations and Cover: GLOO / Yejin Lee

Assistant Managing Editor (supervising Assistant Editors): Alex Tan

Assistant Managing Editors (supervising Editors-at-Large): Daljinder Johal and Kathryn Raver

Assistant Managing Editor (overseeing blog production): Hilary Ilkay

Assistant Managing Editor (overseeing issue production): Ella Dailey

Chief Executive Assistant: Rachel Farmer

Senior Executive Assistants: Julie Shi and Charlotte Chadwick

Executive Assistants: Meenakshi Ajit, Dina Famin, and Haeri Lee

Blog Editors: Xiao Yue Shan, Bella Creel, and Meghan Racklin

Art Director: Lee Yew Leong

Guest Artist Liaison: Berny Tan

Senior Copy Editors:Ellen Elias-Bursac, Jennifer Busch, Ellen Sprague, and Rachel Stanyon

Copy Editors: Sophie Eliza Benbelaid, Sauvryn Linn, Joseph Mcalhany, Willem Marx, Jessica Nickelsen, Jenna Nelson Patton, Matilde Ribeiro, Grace Roodenrys, Anna Rumsby, and Sam Steinmetz

Technical Manager: József Szabó

Director of Outreach: Georgina Fooks

Podcast Editor: Vincent Hostak

English Social Media: Ruwa Alhayek, Livia Djelani, and Hannah Landau

French Social Media: Filip Noubel

Spanish Social Media: Sergio Serrano

Graphic Designer: Michael Laungjessadakun

Senior Digital Editor: Matthew Redman

Digital Editors: Julia Maria and Savitri Asokan

Marketing Manager: Kate Lofthouse

Director, Educational Arm: Sarah Nasar

Educational Arm Assistants: Mary Hillis, Marissa Lydon, Anna Rumsby, Devi Sastry, and Sonakshi Srivastava

Book Club Manager: Carol Khoury

Asymptote would like to acknowledge the support especially of LTI Korea.

For their generous donations this past quarter, our heartfelt thanks go too to Christina Kramer, Claire Hegarty, Daniel Hahn, Elizabeth Raible, Grace Zivny, Hannah Bowman, Jeffrey Boyle, Katarzyna Bartoszynska, Lynn O'Neal, Marjolijn de Jager, Mark Cohen, Martin Ingebrigtsen, Monty Reid, Philip Feinsilver, Thomas Carroll and Velina Manolova.

We would also like to extend a warm welcome to Michelle Garnaut and Lawrence Flood, who joined us as sustaining members in February 2025.