Asian women writers gain a wider audience thanks to translations of their work crowdfunded by a British publisher

A publisher’s first Kickstarter campaign to showcase the works of Tamil, Korean, Nepalese and Vietnamese poets was so successful, it’s back for a second round

‘The more visible and the more heard the voices of diverse individuals and communities, the more inclusive and fairer our society will be,’ one translator says

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In June 2018, a campaign was launched to fund Translating Feminisms, which translates works by female Asian writers. Photo: courtesy of Tilted Axis Press

Published: 2:15pm, 11 Oct 2020Updated: 2:15pm, 11 Oct 2020

“Women do write. They carry multiple burdens, but they still endeavour to create,” says Faye Cura, co-founder of Gantala Press, a Filipino feminist literary collective and small press that publishes books and other publications documenting the conditions and struggles of women.

“We know of a farmer who writes poems in her little notebook while waiting for people to buy vegetables in her stall,” she explains. “We know of a union leader who composed poems in her cell, after being wrongfully arrested for organising a workers’ strike. We know of a migrant woman worker who writes poems and essays after a hard day at the factory, and has even won literary awards for her writings. I think what publishers can do is to actively seek these works and publish them.”

One such publishers is the non-profit, British-based Tilted Axis Press, which was founded in 2015 and focuses mainly on translated work by Asian writers.

In June 2018, the publisher launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund Translating Feminisms, a bundle of chapbooks (a small publication of up to about 40 pages) that showcases the works of Tamil, Korean, Nepalese and Vietnamese poets. The campaign raised £7,000 (US$9,000) and the chapbooks were sold out – an encouragement to continue the series, this time with a focus on Indonesia and the Philippines.

Pa-Liwanag is a collection of Philippine poetry and prose translated into English. Photo: Tilted Axis Press

“We’re interested in collective forms of publishing that involve readers, writers and translators in a different way than traditional publishing, and running a Kickstarter campaign can help in introducing writers and topics in a more sustained way than dropping a finished product on [publication] day would do,” says Theodora Danek, operational manager at Tilted Axis Press.

“But we’re obviously also always thinking about translation funding, which can be hard to come by in the regions we publish, and also often has a long turnover time. Finally, a crowdfunding campaign also gives us some insight into what our readers are interested in.”