Due to rights issues, the audio of this interview is not available online. Please contact San Diego State University, Special Collections and Archives if you wish to be granted access to the original audio. Larry McCaffery, Sinda Gregory, Mari Kotani and Takayuki Tatsumi meet with and interview Yoriko Shono at a restaurant in Japan. Shono’s replies are all in Japanese and are translated for McCaffery and Gregory by Tatsumi. McCaffery and Gregory explain that all of their questions will focus on Time Warp Complex because it is the only book of Shono’s that had, at that time, been translated into English. Shono explains that Time Warp Complex is not representative of the majority of her writing but had been more accessible to be translated but that her major work, Restless Dream, would resist translation due to a reliance on Japanese language play. She explains that Restless Dream, which she spent a decade writing, formed the foundation for her future writing. Shono gives an in-depth explanation of the “discursive framework” of her novel Restless Dream and how it comes from Japanese language. Shino explains how she was influenced both by writers and by her experience in earning a law degree. An edited version of this interview was published as “This Conflict Between Illusion and Brutal Reality: An Interview with Yoriko Shono” on pages 172-178 of Review of Contemporary Fiction Vol. 22 (2), Summer 2002.
