切ない (Setsunai): When You Need a Word to Hold Both Sorrow and Joy
‘Setsunai’ implies something once bright, now faded. It is the painful twinge at the edge of a memory, the joy in the knowledge that everything is temporary.
This is Mistranslate, a monthly column by Nina Li Coomes about language, self-expression, and what it means to exist between cultures.
How do we translate setsunai?
Nina Li Coomes is a Japanese and American writer, currently living in Chicago, IL. Her writing has appeared in EATER, The Collapsar, and RHINO Poetry among other places. Her debut chapbook haircut poems was published by Dancing Girl Press in 2017.
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To me, ‘daiji’ embodies the struggle to prioritize two languages, homes, and selves.
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Hafu carries insinuations of otherness; of not belonging, but being fetishized. How do I carry this name and this history at once?