Jose Saramago’s response to the question of his role as a blogger on November 25, 2008 at a press conference in Brazil.

Could it be, to put it more clearly, that it’s here that we all most closely resemble one another? Is this the closest thing we have to citizen power? Are we more companionable when we write on the internet? I have no answers; I’m merely stating the questions. And I enjoy writing here now. I don’t know whether it is more democratic, I only know that I feel the same as the young man with the wild hair and the round-rimmed glasses, in his early twenties, who was asking me the questions. For a blog, no doubt.

translated by Amanda Hopkinson & Daniel Hahn

Ruins: The Ku-su Palace by Li Po

The garden’s desert, crumbling walls, as willows green again.
Even the sweet song of spring’s a lament.
Nothing of what was, but the moon above the river,
moon that shone on a pretty face in the palace of the king of Wu.

translated by J.P. Seaton