Hervé Le Tellier / France
"To translate is to betray. Traduttore, tradittore say the Italians."
Alexandra Petrova / Russia
It seems to me that Russia holds no memory of herself. She is blind because she can’t see how her own history shapes her people
Horacio Castellanos Moya / El Salvador
“When something is burning inside you, you can write in any conditions anywhere.”
Nawal El Saadawi / Egypt
"I cannot discuss Egypt in isolation from America and Israel and Britain because we live in one world, not three worlds, and we are affected by each other."
Cornelius Eady/ USA
[Cave Canem] emboldens some of us to challenge the assumptions some hold of the African American poetic. Challenge involves resistance, and no one gives up privilege without a fight."
Beverly Perez Rego / Venezuela
"Poetry is a testimony of your passage through life. The only thing you can aspire to is to be as faithful as you can to what you witnessed."
Yu Kwang-chung / Taiwan
"Poetry can be used for many purposes, one of which is as a weapon."
Hind Shoufani / Palestine
"I think that is what the poem is trying to say: I am tired of being bombarded by pain, and other people’s pain, which creates a certain amounts of guilt because I’ve been privileged in many ways as a Palestinian."
Chenjerai Hove and Brian Chikwava / Zimbabwe
"We have freedom of expression; what we don’t have is freedom after expression."
Kyung-sook Shin / South Korea
"In the past, the enemy was clear and the things we needed to fight against were obvious. Now it is difficult for us to see what enemies we have. As a result, speaking has become more difficult, even if we do have more freedom of expression."
Dermot Bolger / Ireland
"Since the early days when I felt that the Dublin I knew wasn’t being written about I’ve always tried to chronicle each decade of Dublin as the city has changed."
Edwidge Danticat / Haiti/ USA
"There are people in this world this very minute who are creating dangerously; they are risking their lives for their art."
Liao Yiwu / China
"In a way, the exile was imposed on me. I didn’t choose it... I was forced to leave China to seek freedom to write."
Philo Ikonya / Kenya
"I will go back to my country, and it will not be easy. But I have to protect my writing."
Amiri Baraka / USA
"I just wrote a play about [W.E.B.] DuBois called The Most Dangerous Man in America. That’s what the FBI called DuBois. But that man was 82 years old and had a cane."
This selection of Sampsonia Way author interviews published in 2011 feature diverse voices from around the world sharing their views on a range of topics, including the creative process, politics and culture, and their own struggle to defend freedom of expression. Click on an image to read the interview
