Transnational Communicability: German-Japanese Literature by Yoko Tawada

Abstract

Yoko Tawada, a renowned writer in German and Japanese, offers insight into her impressions of both German and Japanese culture through an intriguing playfulness with language. By setting into motion cultural and lingual concepts in ways that expose new energies in and between the two languages, her work encourages the reader to think creatively and critically about transnational communicability. Through experimentation with orthography, word play, translation, and various ambiguities of language and culture, her texts invariably offer manifold perspectives on transnational issues.