Yōko Tawada: Voices from Everywhere

by Hiltrud Arens (Editor), Bernard Banoun (Contributor), Bettina Brandt (Contributor)

Yöko 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 Voices from Everywhere is an essential collection for anyone with an interest in this important young writer.

Genres: Japan, Literary Criticism

186 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Miriam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great anthology about Tawada Yōko from an anglo-american point of view.

[meeners · Rating 3 out of 5]

a conference volume with an interesting mix of scholars from both the japan side and the germany side (as tawada yoko writes in both japanese and german). favorite essay was the one by tawada herself (entitled "tawada yoko does not exist" and originally presented by her at the 2004 AAS annual conference in san diego). this is how the essay/presentation begins:

I intend, today, to present an academic paper on the nonexistence of the writer Tawada Yoko. So, I should probably take myself off to the aquarium and erase myself from view. "Nonexistence" is, of course, the usual state of the writer being discussed at a literary conference, nonetheless, this writer has made special arrangements to come here and talk about the writer's nonexistence.

love it!