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Minae Mizumura An I-Novel (Paperback)
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eBay item number:314968964499
Item specifics
- Condition
- Book Title
- I-Novel
- Publication Name
- An I-Novel
- Title
- An I-Novel
- Translator
- Juliet Winters Carpenter
- Contributor
- Juliet Winters Carpenter (Translated by)
- Format
- Trade Paperback
- ISBN-10
- 0231192134
- EAN
- 9780231192132
- ISBN
- 9780231192132
- Publisher
- Columbia University Press
- Genre
- Literary Collections, Fiction
- Release Year
- 2021
- Release Date
- 02/03/2021
- Language
- English
- Country/Region of Manufacture
- US
- Item Height
- 0.1in
- Item Length
- 0.9in
- Original Language
- Japanese
- Publication Year
- 2021
- Topic
- Family Life, Asian / Japanese, Literary, Asian American
- Item Width
- 0.6in
- Item Weight
- 15.2 Oz
- Number of Pages
- 344 Pages
About this product
Product Information
Minae Mizumura's An I-Novel is a semi-autobiographical work that takes place over the course of a single day in the 1980s. Minae is a Japanese expatriate graduate student who has lived in the United States for two decades but turned her back on the English language and American culture. After a phone call from her older sister reminds her that it is the twentieth anniversary of their family's arrival in New York, she spends the day reflecting in solitude and over the phone with her sister about their life in the United States, trying to break the news that she has decided to go back to Japan and become a writer in her mother tongue. Published in 1995, this formally daring novel radically broke with Japanese literary tradition. It liberally incorporated English words and phrases, and the entire text was printed horizontally, to be read from left to right, rather than vertically and from right to left. In a luminous meditation on how a person becomes a writer, Mizumura transforms the "I-novel," a Japanese confessional genre that toys with fictionalization. An I-Novel tells the story of two sisters while taking up urgent questions of identity, race, and language. Above all, it considers what it means to write in the era of the hegemony of English--and what it means to be a writer of Japanese in particular. Juliet Winters Carpenter masterfully renders a novel that once appeared untranslatable into English.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Columbia University Press
ISBN-10
0231192134
ISBN-13
9780231192132
eBay Product ID (ePID)
26050036603
Product Key Features
Book Title
I-Novel
Original Language
Japanese
Format
Trade Paperback
Language
English
Topic
Family Life, Asian / Japanese, Literary, Asian American
Publication Year
2021
Genre
Literary Collections, Fiction
Number of Pages
344 Pages
Dimensions
Item Length
0.9in
Item Height
0.1in
Item Width
0.6in
Item Weight
15.2 Oz
Additional Product Features
Lc Classification Number
Pl856.I948s5513 2021
Reviews
A thoughtful reflection on language and culture . . . Mizumura's distinction between her 'Japanese-language self' (her 'real self') and her 'English-language self' isn't a comfortable one. Her dual identity makes her a keen critic of two very different cultures that are, in some ways, inseparable., An I-Novel combines these two elements - the drama of decision-making and interiority, or that which propels the reader and that which compels them - in purified, vacuum packed form . . . Mizumura's fiction has a daring, playful streak, too. An I-Novel is not just about rejecting English - it dramatises this rejection in its form: the novel is designed so that it can't fully be translated into English., It has been gratifying, moving even, to read a work by a writer of such maturity and sensitivity. Mizumura creates memorable characters who have real depth. Juliet Carpenter's translation conveys the novel's qualities with graceful power. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed--and marveled at--a novel so richly insightful and a translation so elegant and readable., An I-Novel stands out as a beautifully written book. It's wonderfully structured, the story dipping in and out of memory and the cold day in the apartment, and the many black-and-white photos of buildings, trees and snow only enhance the effect. It all seems effortless, yet it's obviously anything but, and the reading experience is very similar to that of A True Novel , making this a book it would be very easy to binge on . . . An I-Novel is an excellent, ambitious piece of autofiction., You can read An I-Novel as a great example of the Japanese I-Novel trend in literature. You can read it as a feminist literary landmark, or to inspire a conversation on language and its role in bridging the differences that distance forces upon people who love each other. Or you can just read it for the gorgeous prose, and it would be more than enough., In Minae Mizumura's novelised autobiography, An I-Novel , she peruses [a] delicate network of memories, beliefs, and influences to reach herself . . . What Mizumura speaks of when calling upon the experiences of young Minae is something that many Asian-Americans today are also investigating--the process of negotiating an authentic self between the automating processes of assimilation and the unmistakable partitions of cultural belonging., In Minae Mizumura's autobiographical novel, multiple languages and literatures mediate an expatriate girlhood's dislocations of nationality, race, class, and gender. In the process, the work upends the assumptions of the I-novel, a genre thought to provide unmediated access to its male, Japanese author. The resulting observations are unsparing, sharply ironic and often very funny., At its heart, An I-Novel is a deep meditation on the writer's internal life, on straddling cultures and wanting to be at once authentic and original. Exploding the conventions of a long-established literary form, Minae Mizumura's novel is a landmark in contemporary Japanese literature, finally brought to English-language readers by Juliet Winters Carpenters' titanic feat of translation., In an age of so many books about identity, An I-Novel stands out for the tough questions it poses. It's not difficult to read, since Mizumura is a fluent and entertaining writer . . . Mizumura's books reclaim the particularity, the untranslatability, of her own language. And they do so without the slightest whiff of nationalism., A genre-defying meditation on emigration, language, and race . . . a brilliant document that seems, if anything, more relevant today than upon its original publication. Mizumura's work is deeply insightful and painstaking but never precious., How to translate the book into English while keeping the distinctive flavor and impact of the mix of two languages? Carpenter has done a masterful job, setting the original English in bold, including a sprinkling of Japanese characters, and giving a smoothly flowing account of the protagonist's thoughts and feelings on this pivotal day in her life., Minae Mizumura masterfully transforms the conventions of the traditional I-novel in a nuanced confessional exploring race, identity and nationality., At its heart, An I-Novel is a deep meditation on the writer's internal life, on straddling cultures and wanting to be at once authentic and original. Exploding the conventions of a long-established literary form, Minae Mizumura's novel is a landmark in contemporary Japanese literature, finally brought to English-language readers by Juliet Winters Carpenter's titanic feat of translation., An I-Novel is an intriguing, nuanced portrait of a family in flux, and of a young woman finding her creative center between two worlds., It is to Juliet Winters Carpenter's credit that this wholly English incarnation - where the 'original' English interjections are instead presented in bold typeface - maintains a remarkable consistency of tone throughout; seamless to the point of perfection., [Mizumura] is an intellectual powerhouse, and Carpenter's chatty, fluid translation more than keeps up with her thinking. For readers intrigued by questions of globalization, literary politics, or translation An I-Novel is a complete must-read, but, no matter what your interests, this is not a book to be missed., In Minae Mizumura's novel, multiple languages and literatures mediate an expatriate girlhood's dislocations of nationality, race, class, and gender. In the process, the work upends the assumptions of the I-novel, a genre thought to provide unmediated access to its male, Japanese author. The resulting observations are unsparing, sharply ironic and often very funny., An I-Novel combines these two elements - the drama of decision-making and interiority, or that which propels the reader and that which compels them - in purified, vacuum packed form . . . Mizumura's fiction has a daring, playful streak, too. An I-Novel is not just about rejecting English - it dramatises this rejection in its form[.], No translator could have done a better job than Carpenter in face of such a challenging text. Thanks to the translation, Mizumura's struggle in the English dominating world can now be made known to wider audiences., Visually challenging, narratively robust, and emotionally compelling . . . Mizumura's novel is a genuinely pleasing read, satisfying for its insights into a life between cultures, to be sure, but also for its resonances that affirm how similar are the concerns that occupy us all. The metaphorical cherry on top is that Mizumura is an exquisite storyteller, and hers is a story well worth reading., This [is a] beautiful new translation of An I-Novel , a layered, pitch-perfect novel about a Japanese woman who feels out of time and place., A fascinating literary experiment, but also a fascinating exploration of identity, place, language, and self . . . An I-Novel is a very fine novel of the experience of growing up between (more so than in ) two cultures - cultures which were, on top of it, much more markedly different at that time - and of trying to find one's place, in every respect., A gorgeous, lyrical meditation on language, race, identity, family and the desire and deep yearning to go back to your roots., An I-Novel is a vivid portrait of immigrant displacement and the ironies of our global cultural ecosystem., [R]eaders...will find in Mizumura a fascinating example of how a writer can be at the same time imaginatively cosmopolitan and linguistically rooted.
Copyright Date
2021
Lccn
2020-021822
Dewey Decimal
895.636
Intended Audience
Scholarly & Professional
Dewey Edition
23
Illustrated
Yes
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