journal of the lucas graduate conference (2012)

7/30/2019 journal of the lucas graduate conference (2012)

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journalofthelucasgraduateconference | 67

Emanuela Costa

University of Naples LOrientale, Naples, Italy

ABSTRACT - This paper focuses on how Europe is imagined in the works of

contemporary writer Tawada Yko. It argues that Tawada engages in a dis-

course that invites readers to reect upon the relavism of geographic and

linguisc borders dividing Europe and Asia. Specically, I aim to show how

Tawada develops a series of narrave strategies to rethink seemingly obvious

categories of identy and belonging to European spaces. First, I will focus on

the clash between landscape and mindscape, suggesng that Tawadas writ-

ings along the lines of contemporary discourse on the spaal turn aim

to decolonise taken-for-granted assumpons about Europe. Secondly, I will

look at how stereotyping in Tawadas work funcons as signifying pracce

for essenalising denions of Europeanness and Japaneseness. At the same

me, I will consider how Tawada, by insisng on the conality of her visions

of Europe, rejects any claim for authenc representaon. Then, I will briey

touch upon Tawadas en-gendering of Europe in relaon to the queson of

ethnic and linguisc subalternity, leading to the conclusion that the act of

imagining Europe through literature has a signicant performave funcon

in changing our ways of thinking geographic, racial and cultural dierences.

This paper analyses the way Europe is imagined and portrayed in the liter-

ary works o transnaona writer Tawaa Yko. Born in Tokyo in 1960, Ta -

IMagInIng euroPe

through a PaIr of JaPanese glasses

rethInKIng eurasIan Borders Inthe WorKs of taWada Yko


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68 | Journalofthelucasgraduateconference

IMagInIng euroPethrough JaPanese glasses

waa ove to Haburg in the 1980s, aer an insiraona train rie on

the Trans-Siberian raiway. Since 1989, she has eveoe a arae caree

in Euroe an Jaan, wring both in Geran an in Jaanese. Her work ha

recenty gaine crica aenon an araisa throughout Euroe, Jaanan the US because o her boreress iagery an oygot quaies. This

aer argues that Tawaas reresentaon o Euroe robeases trai

ona ways o conceiving sace by sheing ight on how the erceon o

geograhic anscaes reies heaviy on sociay an oicay constructe

inscaes. In other wors, Tawaas narraves suggest that iaginaon i

at the core o geograhy just as it is essena to iterature. The iterary rere

sentaon o geograhy, even when it is objecvey reresente as the ro

jecon o a rea ace, is never the urey iec iage o that sace, no

ony because coete objecvity is an eisteoogica iossibiity, but

because the noon o sace itse is not se-containe an se-reerena

instea, it is buit on a iaecca reaonshi between its rea-wor reer

ent an huan ercetua an cognive structures.

In doing so, Tawadas work reveals an engagement with postmodernist

araigs o obiity an eterritoriaisaon that queson the eaning

o geograhic borers in this era o rooun oica an cutura shis

At the sae e, Tawaas insistence on borerans an roners oregrouns issues which roinenty eature in ostcoonia thinking an in

gener iscourse, such as the reaon between center an argin as we as

the robe o eae agency in transnaona contexts. Whie these toic

have been extensivey aresse in conteorary iterature an Tawaas

Something unique is afoot in Europe, in what is still

called Europe even if we no longer know very well

what or who goes by this name. Indeed, to what

concept, to what real individual, to what singu-

lar entity should this name be assigned today? Who

will draw up its borders?

Jacques Derrida


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eManuela costa

engageent with such issues ight thereore not see groun-breaking,

this aer suggests that Tawaas Jaanese work is worth exoring ro the

ersecve o cutura geograhy, ostcoonia theory, an econstrucon-

ist thinking to shed light on how her works give shape to a literary vision that

chaenges both Euroean an Asian reaers to eveo a cuturay aware

an se-crica reaing o the eaning o Euroe an Asia in the current era

o transnaona ows o eoe, objects an ieas.

In this resect, Tawaas way o iagining Euroe is ess concerne with rec-

reang an iaginary hoean to borrow Saan Rushies eorabe

hrase than it is with oinng out how noons o geograhica incusion

or excusion have uncone to oster iscourses o naona beonging to

an iagine counity. Nevertheess, Tawaas guraons o Euroe, as

we sha see, o not suggest a siisc ichotoy between East an West,

but suggest the coicity o Asia in eretrang Orientais, iying that

both Europeans and Asians have built up an image of Europe that fails to

acknowege the signicant contribuon o non-Euroeans in the aking o

Euroe itse. Iagining Euroe through the ens o iterature thus becoes

or Tawaa a eans to ca or a uch-neee change in the way we ene

an ark the bounaries o Euroean an Asian ienty in the wake o

gobaisaon. To what extent o non-Euroeans iving in Euroe artake inening the noon o Euroe itse? Can transnaona subjects actuay ro-

uce new eanings to the noons o Euroe an Asia?

GEOGRApHIES Of THE mINd: EUROpE AS lANdSCApE, EUROpE AS mINdSCApE

Tawaas rst work in Geran was a coecon o stories signicanty te

Wo Europa Anfngt(1991).1 The centreiece o the coecon is a cona

travelogue about a Japanese woman travelling on the Trans-Siberian Railway

to visit moscow, a city which has ong stoo in her iaginaon as the thresh-

o to Euroe. In the text, moscow uncons rst o a as a rea ace an

as objecve correave o Euroe cherishe in the in o the young nar-

1. Yko Tawaa, Wo Europa Anfng

(Tbingen: Konkursbuch Verag

1991)


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rator or ecaes.2 This ens when a oster aversing a tri to Euroe on

the Trans-Siberian Raiway transore the ieasuraby ong istance to

Euroe into a nite su o oney.3 The eaning o the woans journey

however, is increasingy ut at stake the coser she gets to moscow. day byay, she iscovers that what she ha taken or grante naey that mos

cow is in Euroe is a aer o isute aong her interocutors:

Euroe begins not in moscow but soewhere beore. I ooke

out the window and saw a sign as tall as a man with two arrows

ainte on it, beneath which the wors Euroe an Asia were

wrien. The sign stoo in the ie o a e ike a soitary cus-

tos agent. Were in Euroe areay! I shoute to masha, who

was rinking tea in our coartent. Yes, everythings Euroe

behin the Ura mountains, she reie, unove, as though

this ha no iortance, an went on rinking her tea. I went

over to a frenchan, the ony oreigner in the car besies e,

an to hi that Euroe int just begin in moscow. He gave a

short augh an sai that moscow was not Euroe.4

The assage quote here is arcuary reevant to the unerstaning o

Tawaas iea o Euroe, as it highights a key concet the author ais torobease: the ga between anscae as an actua ocaity, an in

scae as the subjecve eanings our ins roject on anscae itse. In

other wors, Tawaa shows here how territories can be aroriate as iv

ing enes, contribung to the creaon o geograhies o the in which

as Knight contens, can an o n exression in the way sace is struc

ture.5 The eusiona reacon o the rotagonist in Tawaas story stes

recisey ro the suen reaisaon that her eow traveers o not agree

with the iage o Euroe she envisione. The aarenty neat an unequiv

oca borerines iviing Euroe an Asia thus becoe ety signs two

ere arrows with no cear reerent: geograhic sace, abeit rea an exe

rience, here reveas its arbitrary nature an estabiises the way the ain

2. In an interview Tawaa cais:

To e as a chi, moscow was aso

a rea city because o the anyRussian fairy tales and stories that I

rea. Besies, I was not just rea-

ing about moscow. during the 1980s

I travee to moscow at east ve

es. The city becae rea, but the

noon o an iaginary city connue

to interest e ineenent o the ac-

tua city o moscow. Quote in Bet-

na Brant, The post-Counist

Eye: An Interview with Yoko Tawaa,

World Literature Today. A Literary

Quarterly of the University of Okla-

homa 80 (2006): 41.

3. Yko Tawaa, Where Europe Be-

gins, trans. Susan Bernosky an

Yui Seen (New York : New direc-

ons, 2002), 125.

4. Ibi. . 141.

5. davi B. Knight, Ienty an Ter-

ritory: Geograhica persecves onNaonais an Regionais, An-

nals of the Associaon of American

Geographers 72 (1982): 517.


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eManuela costa

character erceives herse in reaon to ace.

Borers, roners an iina zones ay a ivota roe in the story, because

o their eihanic ower to revea how iniviua an coecve senses obeonging to a ace are cuturay constructe. In this resect, Tawaas in-

terest in intersa zones can be rea in the context o ostoern iscours-

es on the saa turn, which work at the intersecon o huan geograhy

(in the traion o foucaut, leebvre an, ore recenty, davi Harvey an

Ewar Soja) an the huanies (with arcuar reerence to the rocess

o eterritoriaisaon/reterritoriaisaon congure in the works o derria,

deeuze, Guaari, Bhabha, Anzaa, to nae a ew) in orer to exore the

ynaic reaonshi between sace an its narrave arcuaon. Tawaas

quesoning o the stabiity o borers an her oubts about the roners o

Euroe echo derrias reoccuaon about who wi raw u its borers,

an suggest aong the ines o ostcoonia thinking that the saces once

thought to be autonoous an se-evient accoring to a Eurocentric vision

o the wor, are in act constanty shiing. Borers in Tawaas works are

overty orous, as they are ereabe to both the inuence o geo-oica

changes an socio-cutura constructs.

Yet the sie acknowegent o the socia roucon o sace is not su-cient to reene roners an reconstruct a new borer narrave. I geo-

grahic coorinates have so ar encasuate sace ry estabishing a

here an there how can we exress the through anguage now that

such isncons have becoe unreiabe? In Tawaas story the ain char-

acter is caught in recisey this seioc tra when a chi asks her where she

is ro. The woan roty answers Tokyo, but the boy has no iea o

where it is, so his granather exains that Tokyo is in the East. At this oint,

the woan reaises that, in orer to ene her own ienty, she aso nees

to reer to the sae geograhic coorinates: Hant I aso aske quesons

ike that when I was a chi? Where is peking?In the WestAn what

is in the East, on the other sie o the sea? Aerica.6 This conversaons,

6. Tawaa, Where Europe Begins,

139.


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an others on the train, ay a key roe in the text: in act, contrary to what

we wou exect ro a trave narrave, the nove abouns in recoecon

o iaogues, whereas escrions o aces seen uring the journey are o

ie iortance to the rotagonist, conveying the eeing that the narratois fonder of the idea o reaching Euroe than o vising it. As Kari van dijk

notes, the robeac noon o arriva ies at the core oWo Europa an

fngt, coicang the ossibiity o agreeing on a coon Euroean voice

cuture or territory.7 The act o arriving iies reaching a esnaon as we

as a enion, both geograhicay an concetuay, o what Euroe truy is

an where it originates. As the narrave unraves, however, it becoes cea

that every assenger anchors his view o Euroe in isncty oca contexts

The journey thus turns into a rocess o econstrucng the rotagonists i

age o Euroe, which is uatey conre when, at the en o the story

the rotagonist arrives in moscow ony to be enie an entry visa. Once the

iea o Euroe, as she ha iagine it, coases, the ony thing the woan

can see is a buiing with the eers mOSKVA in aes a row o ety

signs with no reerence. The eers eventuay vanish an the woan ns

herse staning, co an conuse, in the ie o Euroe.

THE UNBEARABlE lIGHTNESS Of STEREOTYpES: ORIENTAlISm ANd

SElfORIENTAlISm

Tawaas quesoning o Euroean borers an her way o iagining Euroe

as an unreachabe sace tesy how, esite the act that actua aces an

ocaies nowaays have becoe ever ore burre an ineterinate a

a resut o requent obiity an increase counicaon through techno

ogy, ieas o cuturay an ethnicay isnct aces becoe erhas even

ore saient.8 The ragentaon in the erceon o Euroe is a thee

that also features in Tawadas Japanese novel Perusona (1998), which re

voves aroun the eoona turois o michiko, a Jaanese gir iving in

Gerany.9 The cause behin michikos ienty crisis can be trace to the

traua she exeriences uon hearing that her rien Seonryon, a Korean

7. Kari van dijk, Arriving in Eurasia:

Yoko Tawaa Re-Wring Euroe, in

Re-thinking Europe: Literature and

(Trans)Naonal Identy, e. Nee

Beong et a. (Astera: Rooi,

2008), 172.

8. Akhi Guta an Jaes ferguson,

Beyon Cuture: Sace, Ienty,

an the poics o dierence, in

Culture, Power, Place: Exploraons in

Crical Anthropology, e. Akhi Gu-

ta et a. (New York: duke University

press, 1997), 10-11.

9. Yko Tawaa, perusona, in Inu

mukoiri, (Tokyo: Kansha, 1998),

8-76.


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eManuela costa

ae nurse who works at the oca hosita, has been accuse o sexua har-

assent. At rst, the Geran sta o the enta hosita where Seonryon

works reuse to give creit to such a sanerous cai against a an who is

known to be serious an harworking, but eventuay the nurses reutaonis ut at stake when a theraist interrets the ack o exression on his ace

as roo o a skiuy hien cruety. The accient causes michiko to oner

the racist atue isaye by the Gerans, an to queson her own status

an ienty as an Asian exat in Euroe. When arcuang her eeings,

however, neither her Geran nor her Jaanese riens see to unerstan

michikos concerns, so the gir starts wanering aroun Haburg in orer

to n her ienty. When the gir reaches foang Euroe, an iigrant

istrict situate aong the river Ebe, she exects to ee at ease, iagin -

ing that a the inhabitants o the area share a sense o aienaon regaring

their iigrant conion. Through this iage Tawaa creates an aternave

sace to conceive Euroe, eaborang on the eaning o being a Euroean

ro Eastern Euroe as oose to the Euroeans in Western Euroe. The

iea o a oang Euroe reers, on the one han, to the act that the houses

in this area are sa houseboat-ike buiings that oat on the water o the

river. On the other han, it etahoricay reers to the erihera osion

occuie by its inhabitants, who a coe ro countries such as Ruania,

Abania, poan an are soewhat arginaise because o their origins.Even though they receive suort ro the governent to stuy Geran

an integrate in the new country, their being gathere in a istrict aray

buit uon water i.e. on a borer zone suggests how their Euroeanness

is not on a ar with that o iniviuas coing ro Western Euroe. At the

sae e, Tawaa oes not ortray Eastern Euroeans as ere vics o

a syste which exoits the an then subty tries to accuturate the. In-

stea, she ocuses on how the iigrants are coicit in reinorcing their

outsierness by ostering the sae ogic o naona iencaon an cu-

tura stereotyes which cause their isoaon. In foang Euroe michiko is

ooke own on by the inhabitants o the area because o her Asian ethnicity

she is rst istaken or a Vietnaese, then or a Korean an or a fiiino


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as i intrinsicay inerior because o the coour o her skin.

In siiar ashion, the Jaanese exatriates who aear in the story isay

strong naonaisc eeings an are not at a intereste in estabishing reaons outsie their sa exat counity. michikos brother Kazuo, o

exae, rejects any coarison between his own status in Gerany an

that o other Asians. When michiko ees oene by the coents o the

Gerans about the suosey inexressive ace o Asians, Kazuo reson

unsyathecay, as i he is not invove: Kazuo int in that his siste

use the wor East Asian. Ceary there was no such a wor in Jaanese.1

Here, Tawaa oes not aet to roose an easy East-West ichotoy, in

which Gerany stans or the oy Euroean country that ooks own on

its exoc other, whie Asia ays the roe o the vic. Athough the Euro

eans in the story are ceary recent to trust iigrant counies an

with their behaviour they rove that the oreigner is, aer a, a erennia

guest the Jaanese in the story are aso not intereste in erasing cutura

stereotyes. As Stuart Ha oints out, stereotying is a signiying racce

essena to the aintenance o the socia an syboic orer: it sets u a

syboic roner between the nora an the eviant, the nora an

the athoogica, the accetabe an the unaccetabe, what beongs

an what oes not or is Other, between insiers an outsiers, Us anThe.11 Stereotyping in this novel plays the same role for both Europeans

an Asians as a eans o avoiing isruon an conring the socia ore

accoring to a binary ogic o sae/other.

furtherore, the ortraya o Jaanese iigrants in the nove is coi

cate by the ynaics o what Koichi Iwabuchi enes as se-orientais.

Whie Jaans construcon o its naona ienty through an un-

abiguous coarison o itse with the West is a historicay

ebee roject, Jaans oern naona ienty has, I wou

argue, aways been iagine in an asyetrica totaizing tria

10. Ibi. . 22. my transaon.

11. Stuart Ha, The Sectace o the

Other, in Representaon: Cultural

Representaons and Signifying Prac-

ces, e. Stuart Ha (lonon: Sage

pubicaons, 1997), 258.


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eManuela costa

between Asia, the West an Jaan. [] Jaan is unequivo-

cay ocate in a geograhy cae Asia, but it no ess una -

biguousy exists outsie a cutura iagery o Asia in Jaanese

enta as. [] This uaity oints to the act that Asia hasoverty or coverty aye a constuve art in Jaans construc-

on o naona ienty. Whie the West aye the roe o the

oern Other to be euate, Asia was cast as the iage o

Jaans ast, a negave ortrait which iustrates the extent to

which Jaan has been successuy oernize accoring to the

Western stanar.12

Tawaa herse iscusses the issue o such reverse naonais in her essay

Eigentich ar an es nieane sagen, aber Europa gibt es nicht (dont

te anyboy but Euroe oes not exist) where she rovocavey argues that,

just as the East has been or a ong e a troe o the West, the iea o Eu-

roe is a cona one.13 She argues that in Japan many people believe that

Euroean cuture is not the roerty o the Euroeans, as it is easy or others

to iitate. In orer to see Euroe she thereore has to ut on an iaginary

air o Jaanese gasses.14 However, the writer contens there is no such

thing as an authenc Jaanese viewoint either, because, aer a, the ieas

o Euroe an Jaan are both the outcoe o a erennia rocess o utuaabricaon:

my Jaanese gasses are not a too that you can easiy buy in a

store. I cannot ut the on or take the o accoring to y

oo. These gasses eerge ro the ain in y eyes an grew

into y esh, just as y esh grew into the gasses.15

Tawaa here brings orth the issue o authencity, eaborang on the intrin-

sic conaity o cutura ienes. Traionay, Tawaa suggests, Euroe

has envisione itse through se-iages an, in a rather ethnocentric ash-

ion, it has concetuaise the others on the basis o their iie ierence

12. Koichi Iwabuchi, Recentering

Globalizaon: Popular Culture and

Japanese Transnaonalism (durha

an lonon: duke University press

2002), 7-8.

13. Yko Tawaa, Eigentich ar

man es niemandem sagen, abe

Europa gibt es nicht, in Talisman

(Tbingen: Konkursbuch Verag Cau

ia Gehrke, 1996), 45-51.

14. Ibi.. 49.

15. Ibi.. 49.


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an iversion ro the norave Western oes o thinking. These oth

ers, however, whie soewhat coicit in aintaining such essenaising

roceures o Orientaist conceons o non-Western sociees, have aso

aroriate the sae categories o beonging sueriose on the anin turn they have create their own reresentaona narrave. As Cauia

Breger suggests, the Jaanese eye is, in Hoi Bhabhas wors [] evi: its

iicry rouces a ara vision o the coonizers resence, a gaze o oth

erness that isaces ienty an thus isruts his authority.16 By shedding

ight on the ynaics behin the oraon o araigs o cutura beong

ings, Tawaa wingy unerines the authority o any narrave resente

as an authenc account or ee insight into cutura ierences. She enie

the existence o reiabe viewoints an, with a certain irony, she isante

the authority of both the represented self and the observer, showing the

iossibiity o achieving an objecve reresentaon o otherness.

Nevertheess, the reerence to the act that, whenever taking about Euroe

the author has to ut on an iaginary air o Jaanese gasses which has

grown into the esh, aso iies that essenaist cutura osions are so

ebee in our erceons o ienty that it is iossibe to eschew

the. Tawaa is aware that, ierect as it is, this binary way o envisioning

beonging is eey ebee in our exerience an thus it is hary ossibe to ove away ro it. furtherore, this iaginary air o Jaanese

gasses escribe by Tawaa is eey ebee in anguage, which ake

it icut or non-Euroeans to arcuate their ieas o cuture in a ieren

way. In the cosing ine o the essay, Tawaa conesses that at rst she cou

not exress herse in Euroe because she ha ie gras o Euroean an

guages. Nevertheess, even now that she is abe to arcuate her thoughts

in Geran, she cannot brush away the eeing that she is seaking in the

way Euroe wants her to seak, through its iagery an set o vaues.

reeat Euroe in Euroe, she aents, suggesng between the ines that

uness a new anguage o hereneucs is eveoe within non-Euroean

cutures an then acknowege by Euroe itse as equay vai, there wi

16. Cauia Breger, Narraves o

Noais or Coying Geran Cu-

ture, in Wring against Boundaries:

Naonality, Ethnicity and Gender in

the German-speaking Context, e.Barbara Kosta et a. (Astera:

Rooi, 2003), 56-57.


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eManuela costa

be no oortunity to eveo a new vocabuary. This vocabuary wou go

beyon the binary categories o iencaon that are generay assue

unrobeac an hasy rea as the reecon o re-given ethnic or cu-

tura traits set in the xe tabet o traion.17

ENGENdERING EUROpE

The strategy Tawaa eveos to iustrate an cricise the concetuaisaon

o Asia as other to Euroe, invoves an act o en-genering to contest the

osioning o Euroe as autonoous an se-reexive centre o cutura

roucon. Tawaa engages in a crique o Euroean cuture by iagining

Euroe as a two-oe ythoogica guraon. On the one han, she sees

Euroe as an abiguous eae gure who Euroeans are eretuay in

search o. Since they kee taking about the oss o Euroe an the urge

o ning her but never actuay engage in such a quest, Tawaa suggests

that the Euroeans have ieaize the iage o Euroe recisey because

it is heessy ost: The eae gure o Euroe ust have been ost in a

ythica e.18 On the other han, Euroe as a ae character is iagine

as a very aggressive gure: the Euroean boy, Tawaa contens, wants to

be the ocus o eoes gaze every e (the ae gure o Euroe asks,

above a, or the constant gaze o the ubic).19

Euroe is very crica to-wars itse an towars other cutures, but such ors o (se-)cricis

are not necessariy a or o narcissis. Inee, Tawaa oints out, they

are essena to Euroe because they ut it in the sotight an revent it

ro vanishing.20 It can be argue that Tawaas way o iagining Euroe

oerates on the basis o an eisteoogicareversa: instea o ening the

other as what Euroe is not, Tawaa chaenges Euroe to ene itse not

in oosiona ters. The resut, the writer susects, wi rove the incon-

sistency o a cai or a coherent Euroean ienty: any assuon o

cutura sueriority ight be no ore than a ack o se-conence hien

behin the aae o rigorous cricis. Accoring to Tawaas iaginaon

thus, Euroe is obsesse with cricising the other or even itse because

17. Hoi Bhabha, The Locaon of

Culture (lonon; New York: Route

ge, 1994), 2.

18. Tawaa, Talisman, . 48. my

transaon.




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this is the ony strategy to aintain the estabishe hierarchies o cutura

an oica ower. Without the estabishe iaeccs o sae/other, here/

there, centre/argin, it is Euroe, rather than others, that wou ose it

reerents. Aer a, the writer notes, soething that is not being ooke atcan isaear at any e.

In this resect, it is signicant that Tawaa iagines Euroe as an aggres

sive gure as we as a subatern ost one. Tawaa sees to suggest that o

the Euroeans, ienty cannot be conceive outsie binary juxtaosions

Euroe can ony be ene against a subatern iage, be it that o the ex

oc other or the woan who nees to be rescue. The oube guraon

o Euroe as a genere enty thus hints at an ontoogica weakness o Eu

roe, a so sot that can be otenay breache. To oruate the queson

accoring to the we-known oruaon o Gayatri Sivak, Tawaas envi

sioning o Euroe suggests that the subatern can seak uon the conion

that it ns a way to escae the tra o ethnicay reeterine anguage

Whie the reaisaon o this aer asect is not yet actuaise in Tawaas

essay, her way o robeasing the eaning o Euroe by turning it into

the object o the Asian gaze ays the ounaons or a reassessent in the

erceons o Euroe that takes into account the gobaise, intertextua

iension o cutura roucon in the conteorary age.

CONCLUSION

In concusion, a key eature in Tawaas narraves is the ortraya o char

acters who waner aroun a abyrinthine Eurasian anscae in which sign

osts an as ai to rovie a ace or ocang ienty. Through thei

traveing, Tawaa cas or an unerstaning o Eurasian roners as inters

a zones ereabe to changes, suggesng how boreran territories are

oen the sace where the ost reevant cutura an oica acvies take

ace. This atue, which eveos aong the ines o ostoernist an

ostcoonia iscourses on sace, invites the reaer to re-exaine the eth


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eManuela costa

nocentric ieoogies that s ersist in this suosey ucutura wor.

Tawaa iagines Euroe as a counter-eire o ety signs where, be -

hin the hysica surace o the rea sace i.e. the geograhic sace thatTawaas characters cross the rotagonists never n a corresonence

between the actua anscae o Euroe an the noon o Euroe construct-

e in their inscaes. Seaking ro the osion o a vountary Asian ex-

atriate in Euroe with a soi cutura backgroun in both Jaanese an

Western hiosohica an iterary thought Tawaa contests Euroes e-

giacy to cai or any authencity o its cutura narrave, whie reus-

ing to essenaise unique characteriscs o Jaanese an Geran cuture

ro a oreign ersecve. far ro being ethnograhic, Tawaas a-

roach conrs e an again the cona nature o her rose. Uatey,

iaginaon becoes the ony ossibe oe o reresentaon because, as

Savoj iekreminds us, fantasy is what allows our mind to make sense of

the wor: iaginaon rovies a raework through which we see rea-

ity.21 Unconstraine by the eans o ocuentary veracity, Tawaas way

of imagining Europe suggests how con can etect new eanings hien

in the os o the rea. literary iaginaon thus not ony aniests its abi -

ity to reresent the wor, but it is abe to arciate acvey in its aking. 21. Savoj iek,ThePlague of Fantasies (New York: Verso, 1997).

Eanuea Costa hos a phd in Coarave literature ro the University o

Naes lOrientae, where she teaches casses in Jaanese anguage an itera-

ture. Since deceber 2012, she has been a JSpS postoctora eow at Ritsuei-

kan University in Kyoto, where she is working on a roject that traces the eve-

oent o transnaona wring in Jaan. She seciaizes in Jaanese iterature,

with a arcuar interest in the arcuaons o transcutura an transingua

iagery in conteorary con.

journal of the lucas graduate conference (2012)

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