The European border of Japanese literature

The aim of my paper is to introduce a few "Japanese" writers as representatives of a different "Japaneseness," one in which Europe is not only a cultural referent but also a relevant part of their identity.In doing so, I hope to contribute to a possible answer to the unsettled question of what makes a writer a Japanese writer: I shall consider it from the perspective of whether it is someone born in Japan, someone who writes in Japanese, someone who shares in the Japanese cultural and emotional world, and other such issues.The first Japanese author writing in a European language who would probably leap to eve1yone's mind is Kazuo Ishiguro.It is difficult to consider him representative, however: if not an English writer, he is more a migrant than a Japanese.'His links with Japan have faded, and his imaginative world is far more European than Japanese.I intend to start my discussion, then, with a writer who sums up all of the above distinctive features: Tawada Yoko (born in Tokyo, 1960).She is now well-known all over the world, as her work reaches Japanese-speaking and German-speaking readers; and she herself has visited various universities in North America, lecturing in Montreal and at Columbia, Tufts, Brown, and Amherst in 2006, and at Penn State in 2007.As a book about her work has also been published, I need not introduce her in any detai1. 2 Among the many writings she has produced, she herself suggested that three of them might be of interest for the purpose of this paper 3 : Where Europe Begins (2002), a collection of stories for the most part originally written in German, Yogisha no yakO ressha (Suspects on Board a Night Train, 2002) and Ekusofonf: bogo no solo e deru tabi (Exophonie: Leaving My Mother Tongue, 2003). 4 Yogisha no yako ressha consists of 13 chapters, each narrating a trip to a different town in a different count1y, as well as the emotions and thoughts of the narrator.The theme of different languages and cultures underlies the whole work: nevertheless, it is difficult to extract any one passage which specifically focuses on the issue.One of the more significant is to be found in the last chapter, "Bound to a Nowhere Town" (Dokodemonai machi e): "Here, we are on board.There are people talking in variety of ways.Those who cannot [bear to] listen to the talk of others had better get off." 5 More than illustrating a personal choice of 1 Such writers also include Fujimori Asuka (born in Tokyo, 1978), who writes in French, although her novels are much more "Japanese" in theme and atmosphere. 2

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