Over There

Abstract In Talisman (1996) and Über see zungen (2002), Yoko Tawada destabilizes languages in their nationalized definition. Through exophony, she develops a process of defamiliarization. She fruitfully reshapes literary perspectives and opens new horizons by transgressing borders. The intertwining of both the sensuality and the fragility of language provides two key texts, “Erzähler ohne Seele” and “Zungentanz”, with a broader discussion of the desire for what I call an “over there”. Eroticism and death are central to an understanding of Tawada’s practice of defamiliarization that critiques the national and gendered aspects of language and reveals the problematic family romance attributed to language. By elaborating on Yildiz’s postmonolingualism and Tawada’s exophony through nuanced Deleuzian and Guattarian concepts, I analyze the author’s poetic of multiple desires through multiple languages by exaggerating the senses (notably, hearing and sight) and propose the “over there” as an alternative way of experiencing world literature.