Abenteuer der deutschen Grammatik. German grammar is definitely not boring. Not that kind of boring where you can expect to start being correctly fluent in just a couple of months. I usually share with my German learning students a quote by Mark Twain who said that eternity was created in order to learn German. Most probably not that kind of encouragement one needs when starting to learn this language.
I was waiting to read something by Yōko Tawada after listening to a discussion with her many years back. Her personal account on identity exploration, particularly through language and grammar sounded intellectually entincing for me, hence the curiosity to discover her narrative interpretations as a Japanese/Asian/non-German living and writing in the German language.
Doing it to poetry sounded even more appealing, given my recent interest in better understanding poetry. Languages are such a complex medium for convening almost everything. In translation or as a hybrid mixt - Tawada included 2 poems written in Japanese, where only the ending of plural in German and some connection words in German were added. Wrinting about grammar identity in the language of choice is an intellectual experiment during which the author chose to expose her fragilities through a language other than the mother tongue. While writing about grammar, nevertheless.
I was expecting more language twists and innovation, but language, like identity and writing, is a permanent work-in-progress. Thus, I am looking forward to discover soon more writings in German and about German by Tawada.
Rating: 3.5 stars
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