This essay is an attempt, a work in progress, to answer some questions about the relationship between the letter in Lacan, as he elaborated in the 1970s, and Chinese writing and poetics, and in general with the eastern world. For this it will be necessary to take into account some elements of Lacan`s work along with François Cheng on central texts of Chinese thinking, such as Taoism and Confucianism.

The central aspects to be worked on are the possible articulations between the letter and the void, and in particular with what Taoism has called the intermediate void, a concept that will become central to understanding the place and function that the letter occupies in the Lacanian orientation.

For this we will also take some elements of calligraphy and Chinese painting, two indissociable arts of poetic writing, in particular the term of single brushstroke, which will be understood as the first and creative trace, and of which Lacan took his concept of unary trait. The letter will be related to that first stroke that will make a groove, a void that could lodge the jouissance.

These elaborations will also serve us to shed some light on the relationship between the letter and oriental poetics and propose some considerations in regards to the end of analysis.