Is Europe Western?

By Tawada Yoko

This contribution by the novelist Tawada Yoko is the second in an occasional series reflecting on East and West, on the geography and imaginative geography of Asia and the Pacific in global perspective. See Uradyn E. Bulag, Where is East Asia? Central Asian and Inner Asian Perspectives on Regionalism

Find the article here: Kyoto Journal: Perspectives on Asia

Tawada Yoko, born in Tokyo in 1960, has resided in Hamburg, Germany since 1982, where she received her Ph.D. in German literature. Tawada made her debut with Missing Heels, which was awarded the Gunzo Prize for New Literature in 1991. A novelist and performance artist, in 1993 she received the prestigious Akutagawa Prize – equivalent to a Booker or a Pulitzer – for The Bridegroom was a Dog, translated by Margaret Mitsutani and published in English by Kodansha International in 1998. Where Europe Begins, translated by Susan Bernofsky and Yumi Selden, was published in English by New Directions in 2002. Ms Tawada, who writes in both German and Japanese, in 1996 won the Adalbert von Chamisso Prize, a German award recognizing foreign writers for their contributions to German culture. Her website is www.tawada.com.

Translation for Kyoto Journal by David Duke; illustrations for Kyoto Journal by Tierry Le. Posted on Japan Focus, December 11, 2005.