Zhou’s Reviews > Exophony: Voyages Outside the Mother Tongue > Status Update
Zhou
is 70% done
Even "original" works are full of twists and holes akin to mistranslations, and it is these holes that give the work its unsettled quality. So if translation is a necessary evil, then so is literature itself. Or perhaps it is an unnecessary evil. But, as Numano-san writes, "evil" has its own pleasures, sometimes more than "good". And if it is unnecessary, it is even more enjoyable.
— Sep 06, 2026 08:49AM
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Zhou’s Previous Updates
Zhou
is 43% done
Once, I was invited to a literary festival in Canada, and was surprised to find myself listed in their program under "Literature of Color." At first I thought it was describing my work as colorful,
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— Sep 03, 2026 08:40AM
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Zhou
is 20% done
Back then, California didn't yet have the reputation of a warm, comfortable place that it has now. If anything, the majority of German authors living in exile there struggled to adapt to the climate. Leonhard Frank once said that in California "there is no air inside the air." He complained about the lack of seasons, describing Hollywood as a hell "where one is permanently exposed to the sun, far removed from life."
— Aug 31, 2026 09:28AM