An Anthology of Modern Literature from the Muslim World Background

Announcing the publication of and seeking submissions for:

Words Without Borders: An Anthology of Modern Literature from the Muslim World
Background




In 2009 Norton Publishers, in association with the literary journal “Words Without Borders” (WWB), will release Words Without Borders: An Anthology of Modern Literature from the Muslim World. This book will feature translations of important literary contributions of the twentieth century in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Indonesian, Dari, and Urdu. This volume, with an estimated length of 400 pages, is intended to provide students and general readers with an accessible introduction to a rich and varied literary tradition that is all too unfamiliar to most Americans. The aim is to help move the American consciousness of the Muslim world away from the terrorists and fanatics, and thus open a window into the lives of that portion of the Muslim world. Organized by language/region, the book will present samples of the major literary writing forms that have come to dominate modern literature: short story, free verse lyrics, plays, novel excerpts, and memoirs.

WWB has invited Reza Aslan, author of No God But God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, (Random House Trade, Jan 2006) to be guest editor of the anthology. He will be aided by a team of five sub-editors specializing in the literatures of specific languages and regions. I, John McGlynn, have been asked to serve as country editor for the section on Indonesia.

Opinion Survey
In the process of gathering together materials for the above publication, I would like to learn from Indonesian authors, literary critics, and other interested parties which authors they think would best represent Indonesia. If you fall into one of those categories and would like to weigh in on this matter, I hope you will take the time to fill in the questionnaire found below and return it to me.
In weighing your choice of authors, there are a number of things of which you should be aware:
1. Given the limited amount of space/pages that will be allotted for the Indonesia section—approximately 100—it is unlikely that more than 10-12 authors can be included, comprising, perhaps, 7 prose writers (with short stories, essays, or excerpts from novels of 10-12 pages each in length) and 3-5 poets, each with 3-5 poems. An excerpt from a play or two would also be considered.
2. Because the volume editor (Reza Aslan) is using the end of the Ottoman Empire as the starting date for works to be included in the volume, country editors will not be able to consider works that were written or published prior to 1950.
3. If possible, the country editor would like to include works spanning the last half of the 20th century period with samples of work from each decade. The country editor would also like to include both male and female authors.
4. Thus far, the volume editor has set no restriction on the religion of the authors—i.e., that they must be Muslim. Therefore, please do not use religion as a factor when making your choices.

Titles of works chosen for selection in the anthology may have been published in translation previously. Both authors and translators will be paid an honorarium of US$100 per 1000 words for up to 1500 words.

Questionnaire
1. What is your name, position, and mailing address?

2. What Indonesian authors of short fiction do you think should be represented in An Anthology of Modern Literature from the Muslim World? Please list up to ten authors and specific titles for each author.

3. What Indonesian poets do you think should be represented in An Anthology of Modern Literature from the Muslim World? Please list up to five poets. (You need not cite specific titles of poems.)

4. What other authors do you think should represent Indonesia in An Anthology of Modern Literature from the Muslim World? Name up to three. Your choice may include dramatists, essayists, and writers of memoirs.

After you have filled out this questionnaire, please return it to John McGlynn by email to john_mcglynn@lontar.org or by post to Jl. Danau Laut Tawar No. 53, Pejompongan, Jakarta 10210. All persons who complete the questionnaire and return it to John will receive a voucher for the purchase of books from the Lontar Foundation.

Announcement: Submissions Sought for: Young, Indonesian, and Female

The Lontar Foundation has scheduled for release, in 2009, two volumes of literary translations with the theme “Young, Indonesian and Female.” The first volume will be published, in association with Words Without Borders, as an issue of the on-line literary that goes by the same name. Volume editors are Dedi Feldman of WWB and John McGlynn of Lontar. The second volume will be released in print, both in Indonesia and abroad, as the eighth installment of Lontar’s Menagerie series. Volume editors are John McGlynn and Dorothea Herliany.



Both volumes will contain a mixture of literary genres: short stories, poetry, essays, and (possibly) drama. As is indicated by the theme, however, editors are primarily seeking works produced by younger Indonesian women writers. Their work may relate to the theme of the volumes, tackling issues of interest to younger women, but they may also be unrelated to the theme as well and be simply of pure literary merit. Male writers are also invited to contribute but their work must relate to the theme of the volumes in order to (possibly) counterpoint issues that the women writers raise.

.:. Other guidelines governing submissions include the following:
• The work must have been written in Indonesian;
• The work may have been previously published in Indonesian but must never before have been published in English;
• The work should not have been published before 1998;
• Copyright for translation of the work is held by the author;
• Prose works—short stories and essays—should be no longer than 3,500 words;
• Unless a poem is very long, submissions of single poems are not encouraged; poets are requested to submit between 5 and 10 works.
All written contributions should be submitted to Lontar in digital form, either via email or on CD via post. Please send them by post to Dewi Andahlia, Editorial Assistant, Jl. Danau Laut Tawar No. 53, Pejompongan, Jakarta 10210 or by email to dewi_andahlia@ lontar.org. Potential contributors are requested to submit their work before 30 September 2008.

As with previous volumes in the Menagerie series, Menagerie 8: Young, Female, and Indonesian, will also contain at least one photographic essay. Both male and female photographers are invited to submit photographic essays dealing with the theme of the volume—but only one essay per photographer. A photographic essay should contain approximately 15 to 20 black and white photographs along with a story or captions describing the action that is taking place in the photographs. Photographers should submit their work in the form of a CD containing medium-resolution jpeg files. If the essay is chosen for inclusion, editors will then request high resolution scans.

For the publication of prose works contributors will be paid Rp. 1,000,000 per thousand words, capped at Rp. 1,500,000; for poetry, the same, with a minimum of Rp. 150,000 per poem. Translators will be paid the same. Photographers will receive Rp. 150,000 per photograph with a cap of Rp. 2,500,000.


.:. About the Project Partners

Literature is one of the primary avenues for encounter with other cultures and both Words Without Borders and The Lontar Foundation were established to promote the translation of literary works into English.

Words Without Borders (WWB), a not-for-profit organization based in Chicago, does this primarily through the on-line publication of its literary journal by the same name. This online magazine registers 200,000 page views a month and has an emailing list of nearly 6,000 subscribers. More information about WWB can be found at www.wordswithoutbor ders.org.

The Lontar Foundation, established in 1987, has, since its founding published more than one hundred books pertaining to Indonesian literature and culture. In the coming year, the Foundation plans to establish an on-line magazine to further promote its goal of enhancing international knowledge of Indonesian literature and culture.