New literary magazine features diverse voices


 

Death in the Afternoon (DITA), a literary magazine launched May 7, aims to feature the voices of students and nonstudents from across the globe and in any language. The magazine’s international, intercollegiate and interdisciplinary focus represents the intersection between cultures, genres and mediums featuring diverse talents.

“As comparative literature students, we all spoke multiple languages and we all loved literature,” said Christopher-James Llego ’17, co-editor-in-chief.

A majority of current members are bilingual. Death in the Afternoon accepts submissions in any language and from any university. Non-English pieces will be accompanied by a translation by the author or a collaborator.

“Our goal is simply to publish fantastic writing from diverse voices,” said co-editor-in-chief Emma Craven-Matthews ’17. “We’re confident that we’ve been able to accomplish that in our first issue and we’re so grateful to the talented people who have submitted to us and made it all possible.”

Death in the Afternoon is named after a cocktail with champagne and absinthe, a cocktail that editors said is a combination of tradition, elegance and offbeat edge.

“In the next few years, we’d love to see an increase in the number of translation pieces. We’re really proud of the ones we have, but our goal is for 50 percent of the published pieces to be originally written in a language other than English,” Llego said.

- Yvette Lisa Ndlovu