Tawada Yōko

[Jack]

The discussion thread for the works of Yōko Tawada,
Scattered All Over the Earth, English translation by Margaret Mitsutani is the October 2024 group read. https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
This novel, in English translation, was a National Book Award for Translated Literature finalist.

An October 2024 buddy read for Facing the Bridge, also translated to English by Margaret Mitsutani, is here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Where Europe Begins was also a buddy read. The was translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky also located on this thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Additionally, I am reading/listening to the audiobook of Memoirs of a Polar Bear, also translated by Susan Bernofsky. The audiobook is very good to excellent. I commented on the same thread.

The Emmissary/The Last Children of Tokyo was the group read in 04/2020: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Ultimii copii din Tokio is the Romanian translation by Monica Tamaș. (Thank you Amalia)

Yōko Tawada (多和田葉子 Tawada Yōko, born March 23, 1960) is a Japanese writer currently living in Berlin, Germany. She writes in both Japanese and German. Former writer-in-residence at MIT and Stanford University.

Book-length works translated to English:

Where Europe Begins, translated by Susan Bernofsky and Yumi Selden, New Directions Publishing, 2002, ISBN 978-0-8112-1515-2
The Bridegroom Was a Dog (Inu muko iri, 犬婿入り), translated by Margaret Mitsutani, Kodansha, 2003, ISBN 978-4-7700-2940-9. This edition includes Missing Heels (Kakato o nakushite).
Facing the Bridge, translated by Margaret Mitsutani, New Directions Publishing, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8112-1690-6
The Naked Eye, translated by Susan Bernofsky, New Directions Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8112-1739-2
Yoko Tawada's Portrait of a Tongue: An Experimental Translation by Chantal Wright, University of Ottawa Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-7766-0803-7
Memoirs of a Polar Bear, translated by Susan Bernofsky, New Directions Publishing, 2016, ISBN 978-0-8112-2578-6
The Last Children of Tokyo (UK) / The Emissary (US), translated by Margaret Mitsutani, New Directions Publishing, 2018, ISBN 9780811227629
Opium for Ovid (Limited Edition), translated by Kenji Hayakawa, Stereoeditions, 2018 – ongoing. Collection of 22 separate books.
Scattered All Over the Earth, translated by Margaret Mitsutani, New Directions Publishing, 2022, ISBN 9780811229289
Three Streets, translated by Margaret Mitsutani, New Directions Publishing, 2022, ISBN 9780811229302
Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel (US) / Spontaneous Acts (UK), translated by Susan Bernofsky, New Directions Publishing / Dialogue Books, 2024, ISBN 9780811234870 (US) / ISBN 9780349704234 (UK)
Suggested in the Stars, translated by Margaret Mitsutani, New Directions Publishing, 2024

Selected shorter works translated to English:

"Hair Tax," translated by Susan Bernofsky, Words Without Borders, April 2005 issue[57]
"Celan Reads Japanese", translated by Susan Bernofsky, The White Review, March 2013[56]
"The Far Shore", translated by Jeffrey Angles, Words Without Borders, March 2015 issue[58]
"To Zagreb", translated by Margaret Mitsutani, Granta 131, 2015[59]
"Memoirs of a Polar Bear", translated by Susan Bernofsky, Granta 136, 2016[60]

[Jack]

I post this a bit early because those forum members in UK can Join TAWADA Yoko, the multi-award-winning author of The Last Children of Tokyo and Scattered All Over the Earth, for an insightful pair of talks celebrating her latest UK release, Spontaneous Acts. TAWADA will visit London’s Libreria bookshop, along with Cheltenham for The Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival.
The information and signups for those sessions on October 7th and 8th, 2024, are located on the JF UK website here:
https://jpf.org.uk/whatson.php#1368

[Jack]

Also NY Times March 2022 had a review of Scattered. I found the introduction pretty amusing and I am looking forward to the group read.

“
By Ryan Ruby
March 1, 2022
SCATTERED ALL OVER THE EARTH
By Yoko Tawada
Translated by Margaret Mitsutani

In the future imagined by Yoko Tawada, rising sea levels have swallowed Japan. The “land of sushi,” as it is now known, survives only in the kitschified traces its culture has left on the exoticizing imagination of Westerners, and in the memories of Hiruko, who was studying abroad in Sweden when disaster struck, and may be the last Japanese person on the planet. Now a stateless refugee, Hiruko migrates first to Norway, then to Denmark, where she finds a job teaching Panska (that is, Pan-Scandinavian), the “homemade language” she invented, to immigrant children from the Middle East.

The first volume of a trilogy, the mordantly funny “Scattered All Over the Earth” reunites Tawada with Margaret Mitsutani, the translator with whom she shared a National Book Award for “The Emissary” in 2018. Tawada, who has lived in Germany for 40 years, writes in both Japanese and German. More than simply international, her writing is translingual; she leaves the borders between languages open and allows them to cross-pollinate. To translate her into English is to excavate linguistic strata: Panska reads like a Japonic parody of Nordic syntax translated into a West Germanic language.

Wouldn’t it be easier to communicate in English? Hiruko is asked during a reluctant appearance on a Danish TV show about people from countries that no longer exist. But in the future, Mexico’s booming economy is attracting Spanish-speaking workers from California, China no longer exports products and no one in the United States remembers how to make anything. Europe’s welfare states are looking to cut costs, so “english speaking migrants sometimes by force to america sent,” Hiruko tells the interviewer, in Panska. “Frightening. illness have, so in country with undeveloped healthcare system cannot live.”
“

[Jack]

“Writing Without Borders”, a fascinating interview with a very multilingual Yōko Tawada.
https://youtu.be/nEXEqCcl1LA?feature=...
This snapshot interview previews a good introduction into the author.

[Jack]

Monique Truog (speaking for Yōko Tawada) and Margaret Mitsutani win the 2018 National Book Award for Translated Literature:
Here is the (short) acceptance speech at the National Book Foundation:
https://youtu.be/b6lD8dY9mos?feature=...
It is great to see and hear Ms Mitsutani.

[Jack]

“Bookseriessinorder dot com” posted this list of Tawada works (available in English, I believe the dates are the original Japanese/German pub dates but have to verify)

Publication Order of Standalone Novels
The Naked Eye (2004)
Portrait of a Tongue (2013)
The Last Children of Tokyo (2014 UK) / The Emissary (2014 US)
Scattered All Over the Earth (2018)
Suggested in the Stars (2020)
Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel (2024)

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
The Bridegroom Was a Dog (1993)

Publication Order of Collections
Where Europe Begins (1991)
Facing the Bridge (2007)
Memoirs of a Polar Bear (2014)
3 Streets (2021)

Publication Order of Anthologies
Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature(2011)
Animalia (2018)

[Jack]

Short bio from New Directions publication of The Bridegroom Was a Dog:
“Yoko Tawada was born in Tokyo in 1960. At the age of twelve, she wrote her first story, which she photocopied and handed out. She studied Russian literature at Waseda University and contemporary German literature at Hamburg University and the University of Zurich, where she received her doctorate. Her first published work was a collection of poetry and prose, A Void Only Where You Are. Tawada was awarded the presitigous Akutagawa Prize (Japan’s equivalent to the Pulitzer) for “The Bridegroom Was a Dog.” She has gone on to publish several more stories and novels in both German and Japanese garnering awards on both continents including the Tanizaki Prize (Japan, 2003) and the Goethe Medal (Germany, 2005). Tawada notably performs her texts aloud, often with the accompaniment of actors, visual artists, and musicians. New Directions publishes four of her books.”

Excerpt From
The Bridegroom Was a Dog (New Directions Pearls)
Yoko Tawada
This material may be protected by copyright.
Italics added for highlighting.

[Jack]

The group read for Scattered All Over the Earth wraps up today, 1 Nov 2024. As usual the thread will remain open for additional comments and further readers on the forum.

We also had a buddy read of additional Tawada works this month.
See: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I especially liked Memoirs of a Polar Bear, the short stories, The Bridegroom Was a Dog, “Reflection”, and “Canned Foreign”.