Hiltrud Arens

Ysko Tawada: Voices from Everywhere is the first volume of criticism dedicated to the work of Ysko Tawada, one of the most highly acclaimed writers of her generation. Douglas Slaymaker has collected a range of essays including many that were featured at the 2006 MLA Conference, where a presidential panel featuring Ysko Tawada was organized by MLA President Marjorie Perloff, who has contributed a preface to this volume. The essays explore the plurality of voices and cultures in Tawada's work and push on to explicate the poetics and intellectual underpinnings of her writing. Analyses of her fiction are paired with examinations of its philosophic and aesthetic foundations. The essayists represent a wide range of scholars and translators who are intimate with Tawada's work in German, Japanese, and/or English. Many of the essays begin as close readings of the German and Japanese texts.Ysko Tawada: Voices from Everywhere is an essential collection for anyone with an interest in this important young writer.