Interviews
Opening New Doors in Order to Express Oneself (Spanish)
(Spanish) Can you imagine someone who mixes clay for thirty years, who left behind philosophy, who left writing. I did not have the discipline to be able to finish my essays on philosophy, we have conversed, I believe it is very difficult for me to publish. I can publish in space, visually speaking, how curious, I can have a hermetic job, precise, a strange career, almost punctual [and] nevertheless with language, including the spoken word, it is more the spoken word, it is much more difficult, there is no such precision, no rigor. I believe that my work on this book was significant to me, I tried a little to go there at the same time as I was writing…I am grateful for the company of two people who were there for me: Frank Sotomayor and Jorge Villacorta, the latter has been a good story-teller….at the same time I was developing the phrasing, the language became more fluid. The last story was written almost without being published, Miminashi Hoichi, without ears. Incredible. And I believe that [the story] probably as well as mixes clay and makes many circles, and perfection is achieved in a tidy way, [in an] integral [way], probably the words also required attention, a use, disuse, isn’t it true? Words must be used, reviewed, refashioned, a little of which was given in the publication of the texts. I have learned much and besides it has served me to remember very important moments. My grandfather Tanaka, my grandmother Blanca, some white roses for her, in short, the stories of Japan, the Ryoanji, the Heikegani, which is the face of “samurai” on a crab that I joined with the face of my grandfather and the blue crab, in short, Miminashi Hoichi, which is the music that loses its ears, so many things. I believe that the book also served to open other doors. There is a distinct manner of seeing the same work as a plastic artist. I believe that the visual, the physical layout is very important, but I believe that in this book one feels a very intense contribution, [and] I believe that so much so that the book is going to be, that is more ephemeral and the book probably is going to be something else. It is a work that I wouldn’t classify as literary because it is highly visual, but it has a certain amount of important reflection, there is a personal search, there is a way to recall certain things, certain symbols that have been very important, and I take it as such, as a delivery and a new possibility of expressing my work.
Date: December 7, 2007
Location: Lima, Peru
Interviewer: Harumi Nako
Contributed by: Asociación Peruano Japonesa (APJ)