A ROOM FOR WRITING JAPANESE   by Hideo Levy January 2001, 188 x 129 mm, 224 pp., 1,800- Speaking English as his native language, exposed to Chinese at an early age and later Japanese, Hideo Levy made the excruciating decision to write in Japanese. Levy challenges the notion that the Japanese language belongs exclusively to people born Japanese. A foreigner writing in Japanese goes against the cherished concept of “homogeneity” and disproves the myth that nationality, race, language, and culture are one and the same. By eliminating the racial provisions of the Japanese language while still affirming its unique sensibility developed over 1,300 years, Levy explores new possibilities for Japanese, not as communicative discourse but as a literary language, in a time when Westerners are still perceived as being unable to speak Japanese. A foreigner who writes and reads Japanese still bewilders many Japanese people. This book is a collection of fresh and vivid essays by an Japan's first Western-born novelist writing in Japanese. These essays share Levy's intimate experiences with the Japanese language and discuss the concept of transcending boundaries. By challenging the easy relationship between reader and writer, Levy's essays are a must read in Japanese literature today. Levy has no peers in world fiction as a writer who has crossed cultural and linguistic borders from the Western to the non-Western world. Contents I: My Life with the Japanese Language / Outside the Fence / Reverence for Imagination — a Travel Down the Yamato Road / Pioneers without Biographies — A History of Expression Itself / A Room for Writing Japanese / Rediscovering the concept of Kotodama /The Irony of “Foreign Residency” / Thoughts on “Ownership” of the Japanese Language / From “World Literature” to “World Fiction” /A New Splendor for the “Language of Expression” II: Visiting Dazai Osamu's “Tsugaru” / Abe Kobo's “Manchuria” /Oba Minako's “America” / What the “Atomic Bomb” means in Japanese Literature / Women's “Post-War Literature” / The Miracle of Kojiki /Oe Kenzaburo's Nobel Prize — an evening chat / When I Realized the Extent of the Japanese Language / Shiba Ryotaro's “Shinjuku” / The Continent “Translated into Japanese” / Estrangement and “Identity” — a Second Look at “Foreign Residency” III: A Record of Those Who Crossed Over / Nomo Hideo, or a Victorious “Transcendence of Boundaries” / To Shinjuku, To Cities in Asia / The Age of Transcending Boundaries / Riding the Express Train / A Room Where Chinese Can Be Heard About the Author Born in the United States in 1950, Hideo Levy spent his childhood in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Moving to Japan in 1967, he has since traveled back and forth between Japan and the United States, earning his doctorate in Japanese Literature at Princeton University. He worked as a professor of Japanese literature at Princeton and at Stanford University. In 1982, Levy received the National Book Award for his English translation of Manyoshu (The Ten Thousand Leaves). But he left his roles as a professor and Japanologist just before his 40th birthday and relocated to Tokyo with the intention of living there permanently. He has written exclusively in Japanese since that time. His first novel, A Room Where the “Star-Spangled Banner” Cannot Be Heard, received great acclaim as the first work of modern Japanese literature written by a Westerner. Published by Kodansha, this novel about an American boy who runs away from home won the 14th Noma Literary Award for New Writers. Levy attracted greater attention in 1996, when his Tiananmen was nominated for the Akutagawa Award. His works include The Victory of Japanese; Identities; Songs of the People; The Shinjuku Manyoshu; and Last Trip to the Border.