Gozo Yoshimasu at Words Without Borders:
I only write in Japanese, a language that is plural by nature. It’s a language that has embraced several languages in its making, so you may hear the Chinese of the Tang, Song, Ming, or Qing periods, or the languages of Okinawa, Ainu, or Korea resonating within it. Asia is a region with an extensive history of a totally different sort from the West. Like in Africa, I guess, we inherit a thick layer of profound time in our basal memory that shapes our physical and mental subconscious gestures, and we always have to remember that.
That being said, Japanese is too complicated to discuss, so let me return to the topic of poetry. I know from experience that my mind goes blank if I’m suddenly given a pen or pencil and asked to write poetry. And that’s what matters. While discussing translation, Walter Benjamin advocated a concept of “pure language” as an extreme goal of all languages. Supposing that every language aspires to this “pure language,” we must make efforts to set our sights on it.
More here.
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