UC Davis

This thesis explores how Yoko Tawada’s poetic world offers a moderate attitude for contemporary migrants identity. Japanese-German writer Yoko Tawada centers on the migrant subjectivity, transcultural identity and linguistic identity. Her genius in writing both in Japanese and German facilitates her Asian female characters on the stage of world literature. How East Asians view Tawada’s poetics? How East Asians face the discourse of being Europe? How, in short, East Asians as the global citizen interprets the concept of body and time? With Tawada’s novel The Naked Eye and her essay Where Europe Begins, my thesis takes the channel of Chan Buddhism philosophy to reinterpret Yoko Tawada’s poetics in fluidity and equanimity.