Over the years my brain has banished Chinese. I dream in English. I talk to myself in English. And memories—not only those about America but also those about China; not only those carried on but also those archived with the wish to forget—are sorted in English. To be orphaned from my native language felt, and still feels, a crucial decision. Would you ever consider writing in Chinese? an editor from China asked, as many had asked before. I said I doubted it. But don’t you want to be part of contemporary Chinese literature? he asked. I have declined to have my books translated into Chinese,
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