重音五问 I Five Questions with Dong Li

“Five Questions with Friends”是我们新开设的灵魂拷问系列，在这里，我们将邀请我们认识的海外亚裔写作者们来讨（吐）论（槽）跨语言写作这个事情。这个名单越来越长啦，敬请期待，漏网之鱼也欢迎在后台和我们取得联系！

Five Questions with Dong Li

Why do you write in English?

I love English. It all came naturally to me. After living in the US for a while, absorbing the conventions and anomalies of American English, I did not feel forced to express myself in that language. It was simply the linguistic environment around me, where I ate clouds and picked sounds from trees. Always a reach. To turn these sounds to words that I could say I earn. The truth is, I do not earn words, nobody does. So everybody should feel uninhibited to write in a language that puts them at ease or makes them uncomfortable and want to do something about it. Bring your pandas into a paragraph, throw in chilies to burn your line. Come on in. Of course, publishing is another beast, but that does not have much to do with the act of writing itself. 

What did you get from your MFA, anything good, awful, or meaningful?

First and foremost, time. Time to mess up and rearrange my feelings and thoughts. Time to be devoured by a book and want to print it on my back. Time to pull a line and let it take over and run for miles. Time to listen to my teachers and cohort and learn to be my own editor. The funding takes the practical pressure off the lid. Everything is a gift in the end. I wished more awful things had happened. At this vulnerable stage, I appreciated the encouragement from my teachers and some have become friends since.

What creative medium do you work in to take a break from your writing? 

I translate and try to live a little outside my head. When I translate, I become increasingly aware how little I know of the languages I work with. I fail at every turn, which often frustrates and then makes me happy. I would do anything to forget myself and my lovely worries. 

Tell us a book/movie/play/artwork… that you have recently enjoyed.

I have enjoyed a recent book from a German-French writer Anne Weber. The book tells of a woman involved in the French Resistance during WWII and her imprisonment supporting FLN in the Algerian War. I loved how Anne Weber treated the material with such lightness that the story of the woman fighter shines forth in all its grey and colorful complexities. 

Share with us some gossip about your writing community.

I am always curious how poets make a living. The economic aspect of it is probably something we all think about but do not often talk about openly. 

INTERVIEWEE BIO

Dong Li (MFA, Brown University) is a student of languages and hopes his love affair with them always cuts the heart.