Description
Book SynopsisYöko Tawada: Voices from Everywhere is the first volume of criticism dedicated to the work of Yöko Tawada, one of the most highly acclaimed writers of her generation. Douglas Slaymaker has collected a range of essays including many that were featured at the 2006 MLA Conference, where a presidential panel featuring Yöko Tawada was organized by MLA President Marjorie Perloff, who has contributed a preface to this volume. The essays explore the plurality of voices and cultures in Tawada''s work and push on to explicate the poetics and intellectual underpinnings of her writing. Analyses of her fiction are paired with examinations of its philosophic and aesthetic foundations. The essayists represent a wide range of scholars and translators who are intimate with Tawada''s work in German, Japanese, and/or English. Many of the essays begin as close readings of the German and Japanese texts.Yöko Tawada: Voices from Everywhere is an essential collection for anyone with an interest in this import
Trade ReviewTawada's characteristic method of writing and translation...receive positive treatment from several contributors....This is a timely and insightful collection of essays on an important writer of her generation. * The Journal of Japanese Studies, February 2009 *
One of this collection's significant contributions is that it crafts a space within the Western academy from which Japanese literature can be understood as participating in the conversation on globalization, not as so much cultural cache for increasingly cosmopolitan consumers, but as a literature that is itself commenting on the globalizing process.... Voices from Everywhere creates a transcultural framework in which these multiple readings are encouraged to cross-fertalize and open up beyond the parameters of its pages and invites a sharing of theoretical sources accross area studies borders. -- Robin L. Tierney * Journal of Asian Studies, February 2010 *
To capture the multilingual, cosmopolitan brilliance of Yöko Tawada would require assembling a team of scholars specializing in different disciplines and regions—and that is precisely what Douglas Slaymaker has accomplished in this fine volume. At last, we have a study worthy of one of the most interesting writers at work in the world today. -- Michael K. Bourdaghs, University of Chicago
Table of ContentsPart 1 Foreword Part 2 Introduction: YökoTawada: Voices from Everywhere Part 3 Tawada Yöko Does Not Exist Part 4 Nation, Transnation, Translation Chapter 5 Translation, Exophony, Omniphony Chapter 6 Missing Heels, Missing Texts, Wounds in the Alphabet Chapter 7 Writing in the Ravine of Language Chapter 8 YökoTawada's Poetological Reflections on her German Prose Works Part 9 Bodies and Belonging Chapter 10 Tawada's Multilingual Moves: Toward a Transnational Imaginary Chapter 11 Traveling Without Moving: Physical and Linguistic Mobility in Yöko Tawada's Überseezungen Chapter 12 The Unknown Character: Traces of the Surreal in Yöko Tawada's Writings Part 13 Language Constructions and Identity Production Chapter 14 Words and Roots: The Loss of the Familiar in the Works of Yöko Tawada Chapter 16 Sign Language: Reading Culture and Identity in "The Gotthard Railway" Chapter 17 Tawada Yöko's Quest for Exophony: Japan and Germany
