Lynne Knight
I Know (Je sais)
Translated with the author Ito Naga, Sixteen Rivers Press (2013)
“Ito Naga offers an inventory of the given that is at once diverting, unexpected and, inevitably, provisional—an inventory that presents reality for what it is: an infinitely expanding universe.”
—Jean-Pierre Siméon
This bilingual edition (Sixteen Rivers Press) of Ito Naga's best-selling Je sais, now in its seventh edition in France, is a collection of 469 statements on life and the universe, each of which begins I know . . .
1. I know that it’s tempting to see signs in coincidences.
13. I know that even astronomers forget that the Earth keeps rotating when they go home.
299. I know that everyone once came out of a woman’s body and that this just seems unbelievable.
302. I know that if we could go backward in time, birth would be as terrifying as death.
388. I know that on waking up last night, for a few seconds I was unable to remember where I was: a feeling of freedom that faded away, the way a gilt-head sea bream loses it colors when taken out of water.
