Exophony: Voyages Outside the Mother Tongue

Novelist Tawada (The Emissary) explores the fertile ground of intermingled languages in this scintillating essay collection. In each of the entries, which are informed by cities the author has visited (Beijing, Boston, Dakar, etc.), Tawada critiques the concept of exophonic literature, or work written in a language that’s foreign to the author. Weaving in her personal background as a native Japanese speaker who took up German in high school and immigrated to Germany at 20 but continues to write in Japanese, she challenges the subtle cultural imperialism embedded in notions of a mother tongue or the language one dreams in. In “Los Angeles: The Poetic Ravine Between Languages,” she notes how even though Thomas Mann continued to write in German while living in California, he absorbed the language of his adopted home into his work. Elsewhere, she emphasizes how literal “mistranslations” can actually be generative and expand the possibilities of language: “The Chinese word for TV is diàn shì jī (literally, ‘electronic vision desk’)”. Playful and erudite, these essays offer valuable insights into Tawada’s own writing and her readings of classic world literature. This leaves readers with a lot to ponder. (June)