MANOA Asian Writers

Beyond Words presents more than two dozen authors from China, Tibet, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Malaysia. The issue features a full range of perspectives on writing shaped by nationality, language, age, gender, and aesthetics through essays, interviews, stories, and poems.

Some of the contributors write to effect social justice, political reform, or freedom from an oppressive government. Others are more concerned with the inner movements of the heart, to family, or to their spiritual nature. Some adopt experimental forms and the mixing of genres, while others look to traditional spoken or literary forms. Still others write of the hazards and surprises of creating in other languages, or writing in countries with many languages and dialects.

Despite their diverse viewpoints, every author in Beyond Words is committed to the power of literature to transform readers, society, and themselves. The effort to write well, to be understood, to innovate, to celebrate, to comfort, and to protest—all are contained in this rich and engrossing collection of voices from Asia.

Fiction, in particular, gives us a semblance of experience. Not a re-creation, no. It cannot replicate experience. What it does is make one of its own, on its own terms, and, through this construction, evoke in the reader a feeling about a particular experience. Let the reader think it is a “slice of life,” or a recollection of experience, or a rendering of events. But what it is, in actuality, is a construction paradigmatic in essence.

—from “A Necessary Beginning,” an interview of
N. V. M. Gonzalez by Roger J. Bresnahan

As long as the writer follows the path set by his past works, it will be easy for the critics to analyze his works. But I strongly believe a good piece of art should be something that bewilders the critics. Of course, I have a blueprint, but then I employ improvisation and try to destroy the whole thing. Will this make the work a failure? No, because I can never destroy a text enough.

—from “Keeping Not Writing,” an interview of Yasutaka Tsutsui
by Larry McCaffery, Sinda Gregory, and Takayuki Tatsumi

Beyond Words features the photography of Linda Connor. An artist whose works are found in over forty major collections, Connor states, “the strongest and most consistent content in my work is the investigation of the cultural boundaries between the natural and the sacred.”


BEYOND WORDS: Asian Writers on Their Work Summer 2006 (18:1) • 180 pages, illustrated • Edited by Frank Stewart and Brent Fujinaka
Beyond Words presents more than two dozen authors from China, Tibet, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Malaysia. The issue features a full range of perspectives on writing shaped by nationality, language, age, gender, and aesthetics through essays, interviews, stories, and poems. Some of the contributors write to effect social justice, political reform, or freedom from an oppressive government. Others are more concerned with the inner movements of the heart, to family, or to their spiritual nature. Some adopt experimental forms and the mixing of genres, while others look to traditional spoken or literary forms. Still others write of the hazards and surprises of creating in other languages, or writing in countries with many languages and dialects. Despite their diverse viewpoints, every author in Beyond Words is committed to the power of literature to transform readers, society, and themselves. The effort to write well, to be understood, to innovate, to celebrate, to comfort, and to protest—all are contained in this rich and engrossing collection of voices from Asia.
Fiction, in particular, gives us a semblance of experience. Not a re-creation, no. It cannot replicate experience. What it does is make one of its own, on its own terms, and, through this construction, evoke in the reader a feeling about a particular experience. Let the reader think it is a “slice of life,” or a recollection of experience, or a rendering of events. But what it is, in actuality, is a construction paradigmatic in essence. —from “A Necessary Beginning,” an interview of N. V. M. Gonzalez by Roger J. Bresnahan	N. V. M. Gonzalez
As long as the writer follows the path set by his past works, it will be easy for the critics to analyze his works. But I strongly believe a good piece of art should be something that bewilders the critics. Of course, I have a blueprint, but then I employ improvisation and try to destroy the whole thing. Will this make the work a failure? No, because I can never destroy a text enough. —from “Keeping Not Writing,” an interview of Yasutaka Tsutsui by Larry McCaffery, Sinda Gregory, and Takayuki Tatsumi	Yasutaka Tsutsui
Malaysians say I am very Westernized. The Europeans say I am very Asian. But the idea is that one has to be one’s own self, and oneself is partly also one’s tradition and one’s roots. I notice that going overseas and living in another country helps you discover more of yourself. You go away to discover yourself. —from “The Writer and the Native Tradition,” a conversation between Muhammad Haji Salleh and F. Sionil José	Muhammad Haji Salleh
The poet is, in a certain way, like a masked dancer with poetry as his mask. The writer is hidden by his mask, and when he is “on stage,” we cannot be sure that in his exciting and memorable expression he is describing the character of the mask or the face of his own soul. In the end we must come to the realization that we are faced not with an individual self, and not with a final conclusion or something finished, but with a dance: a form and a statement in process. There is always something in the dance that is not, or never will be, final—a question that will arise time and again. That is the pasemon, the allusion that rejects the certainty of knowledge. —from “Pasemon: On Allusion and Illusions” by Goenawan Mohamad, translated by John H. McGlynn	Goenawan Mohamad
Please let me go through life as a cricket Singing a tiny song in the tender grass Opening my eyes to shining dewdrops My words ringing like little bells Sunbeams gather bell-sounds in the grass I gather myself in my nest, waiting for night Guileless, I sing my timeless song Burrowing in my peaceful green carpet —from “Cricket Song” by Lam Thi My Da, translated by Martha Collins and Thuy Dinh	Lam Thi My Da
When I listen to what I do, my action and movement become experience. When I’m in great silence, poetry comes forth. Every day is a precise word of a poem. A memorable event becomes a line of a poem. The happiness and sorrow from daily living are hidden in the void between the lines of a poem. We live on, a poem unfolding that we don’t recognize. Only when we listen and deeply gaze at ourselves do the meaning and spirit of life appear. Then the lines emerge. —from “A Commitment to Life,” an interview of Xue Di by Melissa Clark	Xue Di (photo by John Foraste)
Beyond Words features the photography of Linda Connor. An artist whose works are found in over forty major collections, Connor states, “the strongest and most consistent content in my work is the investigation of the cultural boundaries between the natural and the sacred.”	Linda Connor
	back to top

BEYOND WORDS: Asian Writers on Their Work