{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20261010T034321Z-reviewed-full-unique-works","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0811237877?tag=bookfrontie00-20","asin":"0811237877","authors":["Yoko Tawada"],"book_id":"9780811237871","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/exophony-9780811237871","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780811237871.jpg?v=1855835d6422c758","description":"SHORTLISTED FOR THE NBCC AWARD IN CRITICISM AND THE GREGG BARRIOS BOOK IN TRANSLATION PRIZE A New Yorker Best Book of 2025 I am trying to learn, with my tongue, sounds that are unfamiliar to me. A foreign-sounding word learned out of curiosity is not “imitation” per se. All of these things I learn leave traces that slowly grow to coexist with my accent. And that balancing act goes on changing indefinitely. How perfect that Yoko Tawada’s first essay in English dives deep into her lifelong fascination with the possibilities opened up by cross-hybridizing languages. Tawada famously writes in both Japanese and German, but her interest in language reaches beyond any mere dichotomy. The term “exophonic,” which she first heard in Senegal, has a special allure for the author: “I was already familiar with similar terms, 'immigrant literature,’ or ‘creole literature,’ but ‘exophonic’ had a much broader meaning, referring to the general experience of existing outside of one’s mother tongue.” Tawada revels in explorations of cross-cultural and intra-language possibilities (and along the way deals several nice sharp raps to the primacy of English). The accent here, as in her fiction, is the art of drawing closer to the world through defamiliarization. Never entertaining a received thought, Tawada seeks the still-to-be-discovered truths, as well as what might possibly be invented entirely whole cloth. Exophony opens a new vista into Yoko Tawada’s world, and delivers more of her signature erudite wit—at once cross-grained and generous, laser-focused and multidimensional, slyly ironic and warmly companionable.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780811237871","publication_date":"20250603","publisher":"New Directions Publishing","slug":"exophony","subtitle":"Voyages Outside the Mother Tongue","title":"Exophony"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"LIT024060","confidence_band":"medium","label":"21st Century Literature","score":0.7404,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"POE005060","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Asian American Poetry","score":0.7394,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LCO004030","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Japanese Literary Collections","score":0.7354,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"LIT024060","confidence_band":"medium","label":"21st Century Literature","score":0.7404,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"POE005060","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Asian American Poetry","score":0.7394,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LCO004030","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Japanese Literary Collections","score":0.7354,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"LAN023000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Translating & Interpreting","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"LCO004030","confidence_band":"high","label":"Japanese Literary Collections","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"LCO010000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Essay Collections","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"21st Century Literature","score":0.7404,"slug":"21st-century-literature"},{"label":"Asian American Poetry","score":0.7394,"slug":"asian-american-poetry"},{"label":"Japanese Literary Collections","score":0.7354,"slug":"japanese-literary-collections"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers interested in multilingualism and life outside a mother tongue","Readers drawn to essays on cross-cultural language"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["J. 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