Journeys Beyond the Mother Tongue

Exophony: A Journey Outside One's Mother Tongue

Our individual understanding is limited by our native language and native culture. When we step outside these limitations, we not only gain new insights into the world but can also reflect on our own native culture. To transcend one's native language is to break free from habitual perceptions and examine oneself through an external lens.
In this book, the author uses their personal journey of transcending their native language as a narrative thread. Each journey is a chapter, vividly showcasing their encounters, feelings, and thoughts in different linguistic environments. Let us follow the author's travel footsteps and collectively explore the freedom found after breaking free from the constraints of one's native language, and envision the possibilities of a space where multiple languages intertwine and coexist.
"Exphony" refers to the state of transcending one's native language. For an author who has long written in German and Japanese, linguistic transgression is precisely the essential theme of literature. What can be seen in transgression? How does this precisely define one's literature? Like a keen essay that probes its own footing, it reflects the sparkle of language and redefines the way literature exists.

2025-05-01

河南大学出版社

Shanghe Zhuoyuan Culture

213

9787564960087