Beyond “Transborder”: Tawada Yōko’s Vision of Another World Literature

This article presents a critical examination of “transborder” literary approaches that seek to renegotiate the position Japanese fiction within world. The concept transborder has emerged in recent decades as means breaking down boundaries literature assume agreement between nationality writer and language her text. However, it takes its cues from David Damrosch’s influential study 2003, What is World Literature?, which suggests gains value translation, betrays desires promote Japan’s national globalising context. more view reveals despite their calls for greater diversity, exhibit problematic tendencies threaten erase multiple flows intertextuality already extant modern turn eye away history. critique focalised through writing Tawada Yōko, whose prolific output works essays German appear epitomise image writing, yet frequently challenge these assumptions. Both book-length essay Exophony (2003) novel Tabi o suru hadaka no me (2004) offer prescient critiques rooted history expose moments rupture, asymmetry untranslatability, an emphasis on border crossings threatens overlook. by choosing peer those gaps, guided latter’s Vietnamese narrator, texts also incite hitherto unseen connections Tawada’s