Exophony: Voyages outside the Mother Tongue by Yoko Tawada
Translated by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda
This was an unexpected find and addition to my #JapaneseLiteratureChallenge list, however, it's been quite engaging and entertaining, for a work of non-fiction.
It came to be in my reading pile, when I sent my partner to the bookshop to get me a copy of Mieko Kawakami’s novel “Sisters in Yellow”. The bookshop didn't have it, so my partner and the assistant thought this would be a suitable alternative.. Not sure it was the same camp, but it was a Japanese Author.
So I've not been reading this work 'in order because I found each chapter to be quite a different piece of work. In Part 1 - she talks about her experiences as a Japanese born but bilingual German resident, and seems to reflect on her experiences as she's been in different cities around her conference or writing lifestyle. The chapters are titles by the cities she's travelled to. Dakar, Berlin, Los Angles, Paris, Cape Town etc..... in each chapter she's reflecting on different 'relationships' people have with language.
The most powerful quote from Part 1 for me speaks to the power that language has. The author reflects on the juxtaposition of the german words schrei (scream) and Schreiben (to write).
To be able to choose the kind of education you want, to have the luxury of writing poems and novels, is quite rare. Most people are not given a voice at all. Instead they die with silent screams on their lips, their eyes flung wide open as they watch the destruction around them. To write is not the same thing as to scream. And yet, if writing were cut off from the act of screaming, it would no longer be literature. The act of screaming is inseperable from the act of writing. though the two words do not share an etymology, they are intimately bound together through a persons lived experiences.
Part 2 she titles "adventures in German'.. Here I've been taken on some word game play. She mingles her Japanese and German language knowledge. I've highlighted this little interplay:
The literal meaning of the Japanese work sakubun (composition) - which is written with the characters for 'to make' and 'text' - is really quite blunt. The image that comes to mind when you think about 'making' something is of gathering materials, using tools, putting things together. But writing isnt at all like that. As you write something invisible flows out of the surface of your skin and language begins to move like a living creature. Your body temperature may become slightly elevates, and you many enter into a slightly euphoric state as you abandon your ego altogether. This process does not at all match the craftsmanlike feeling of the word tsukuru (to make). I wondered if there wasn't another word that more accurately described the act of writing, something that captured its magical quality.
It's been these reflections and Tawada's analysis of the interplay of language, words, craft, and the history of words, that has been keeping me diving into different chapters, and returning to some for more.
One of her reflections has kept me asking my friends about their thoughts on this. Tawada believes you can hold more than one 'mother toungue'. When you speak with people who have more than one language, we often ask then which one they prefer? or we try to comprehend how their brain splits the different language elements. Do they dream in one or another? Well, Tawada is playing with the concept that they need not be 'buckets' but merged, seemlessly..
I am enjoyed my deviation in non-fiction Japaense literature, and I dont think this book will be put back into public circulation just yet - there's still room on my shelf for this one.
To close out - here's an image I asked AI to create for me - that I think expressed how language and life merge - where the birds pass over us, and their shadows travel with us.
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