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Letter from the Editor

Welcome to the November 2017 issue of Transnational Literature. We begin our tenth year with a wide-ranging selection of peer-reviewed articles, review essays, translations, poems, stories and book reviews from more than fifty contributors based all over the world. And as a recent post on the Flinders University Library eResearch blog points out, you – our readers – come from all over the world as well.

The literature covered in our seven peer-reviewed articles stretches geographically from America to the other Georgia (in the former USSR), with intersecting links between France, India, Persia, China, Poland and Australia. Chronologically, the writers dealt with range from Alfred Jarry in fin-de-siècle Paris, to the American Agnes Smedley in China in the 1930s, to Polish poet Andrzej Chciuk, writing in Australia after the second world war, and Iranian poet Nader Naderpour, writing in the USA in his last years following the Iranian revolution of 1979, up to the present with Indian writers Anita Desai and Lavanya Sankaran. The diasporic and the exiled take their places alongside the confidently American voice of essayist Edward Abbey and the beleaguered members of the avant-garde in 1920s Georgia. Ron Singer's review essay surveys an important African literary prize, and Paul Sharrad provides an in-depth consideration of a new work on post-colonial studies.

We have also included Melinda Graefe's eloquent tribute to Jaydeep Sarangi's latest book of poems, Faithfully I Wait¸ delivered at the launch at Flinders University during Jaydeep's eventful visit to Adelaide from Kolkota in October.

Translations of Iranian and Bangla poetry form a bridge to the riches of the poetry section curated by our new Poetry Editor, Alison Flett. Alison has instituted a new tradition. For each issue there will be a feature from a different country. For this issue, she has invited Cyril Wong, an established poet from Singapore, to choose three of his own poems, and to invite contributions from three other Singapore poets. (Followers of the TNL poetry section will remember that when Alison was the guest poetry editor back in November 2014 she included a feature on Scottish poetry.) There is also an equal number of poems from Indian and Australian poets, including a feature on Adelaide poet Jill Jones.

Six short stories make up the prose creative writing section. Three of the writers this time are Australian, and the others are from Kashmir, the UK and the USA. All write, in fiction or memoir, about unique experiences and memories in places as widely dispersed as Alsace, Kuwait, the Upper Murray River and Macedonia.

Nearly thirty book reviews round out this issue, divided between creative writing and theoretical and critical works.

Thanks to all those who have helped make this issue possible – the anonymous peer reviewers, the section editors Alison Flett (poetry), Md. Rezaul Haque (translations) and Ruth Starke (prose creative writing). And my gratitude goes also to the team of dedicated people who keep the wheels turning – who read and assess submissions, edit articles and reviews, and help with the many administrative tasks involved in running a journal which is transnational in nature as well as name, especially Melinda Graefe and Elizabeth Weeks who took on the day to day editorial tasks while I was overseas for much of August and September. It has also been splendid to have Annette Couch on the team as an intern during the past few months.

Gillian Dooley, General Editor

Click here for Contents page and editor's note in PDF format