Translation is the paradigm, the exemplar of all writing. It is translation that demonstrates most vividly the yearning for transformation that underlies every act involving speech, that supremely human gift. – Harry Mathews
Well, my relationship to America at the time I left was very limited. – Harry Mathews
My next project is to get back to that. Actually, to learn how to write poetry. Im not kidding. – Harry Mathews
Well, the great thing for me about poetry is that in good poems the dislocation of words, that is to say, the distance between what they say theyre saying and what they are actually saying is at its greatest. – Harry Mathews
It must not be forgotten in fairness to the National Government that apartheid is not just a policy of oppression but an attempt – in my opinion an attempt doomed to failure – to find an alternative to a policy of racial integration which is fair to both white and black. – Harry Oppenheimer