{"id":13832,"date":"2015-11-21T07:38:55","date_gmt":"2015-11-21T11:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=13832"},"modified":"2015-11-20T09:39:16","modified_gmt":"2015-11-20T13:39:16","slug":"yoko-tawada-celan-reads-japanese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/yoko-tawada-celan-reads-japanese\/","title":{"rendered":"YOKO TAWADA: CELAN READS JAPANESE"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"article-title-holder\">\n<div class=\"article-title-name\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/yoko-e1448026659842.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13835 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/yoko-e1448026659842.jpg\" alt=\"yoko\" width=\"490\" height=\"220\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 490px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 490\/220;\" \/><\/a>from: <em><strong>The White Review<\/strong><\/em>: A fascinating reflection on Celan and translation from Y\u014dko Tawada, a Japanese writer currently living in Berlin, Germany\u00a0who\u00a0writes in both Japanese and German. I missed the piece when it first cam out in 2013, but very happy to have come across it now. Opening paras below, then click on \u201chere.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">THERE ARE SOME WHO CLAIM THAT \u2018GOOD\u2019 LITERATURE IS ACTUALLY untranslatable.\u00a0 Before I could read German, I found this thought comforting because I was completely unable to appreciate German literature, particularly the literature of the postwar period.\u00a0 I thought I should just learn German and read these works in the original and then my problem with German literature would evaporate of its own accord.<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">There were exceptions, though, such as the poems of Paul Celan, which I found utterly fascinating even in Japanese translation.\u00a0 From time to time it occurred to me to wonder whether his poems might not be lacking in quality since they were translatable.\u00a0 When I ask about a work\u2019s \u2018translatability,\u2019 I don\u2019t mean whether a perfect copy of a poem can exist in a foreign language, but whether its translation can itself be a work of literature.\u00a0 Besides, it would be insufficient if I were to say that Celan\u2019s poems were <em>translatable<\/em>.\u00a0 Rather, I had the feeling that they were <em>peering into Japanese<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">After I had learned to read German literature in the original, I realised that my impression hadn\u2019t been illusory. I was occupied even more than before by the question of why Celan\u2019s poems were able to reach another world that lay outside the German language. There must be a chasm between languages into which all words tumble.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">[ctd. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewhitereview.org\/features\/celan-reads-japanese\/\">here<\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from: The White Review: A fascinating reflection on Celan and translation from Y\u014dko Tawada, a Japanese writer currently living in Berlin, Germany\u00a0who\u00a0writes in both Japanese and German. I missed the piece when it first&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,42,103,1],"tags":[1730,1788],"class_list":["post-13832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criticism","category-essays","category-translation","category-uncategorized","tag-paul-celan","tag-yoko-tawada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13832"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13836,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13832\/revisions\/13836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}