多和田 葉子
Japanese author, an alumnus of
Waseda University and the
University of Hamburg, who moved to
Hamburg in 1982 and has lived there ever since. She writes in both German and Japanese, and (oddly enough) started a literary career in Germany before Japan had even heard of her, with
Nur da wo du bist, da ist nichts in 1987. Her first Japanese release was
Sannin Kankei in 1992, but her next story, in 1993, would turn out to be her biggest sensation in the literary world.
Inu Muko Iri, translated as
The Bridegroom Was A Dog, won the prestigious
Akutagawa Prize and made Tawada famous in her homeland. In 1998, she received the
Adelbert von Chamisso Prize for her German novels, which include
Das Bad,
Ein Gast, and
Wie der Wind im Ei.
Tawada likes to write in both languages: even though she openly admits that her Japanese is much better than her German, she says she prefers the challenge of writing in the latter. She derives many of her stories' elements from Japanese and European folk tales, weaving them into modern contexts.
After winning the Chamisso, she became a writer-in-residence at MIT's German department, but has since moved back to Hamburg. She is a staff writer for Suitcase: A Journal of Transcultural Traffic, and her next book to be translated into English, Where Europe Begins (originally Wo Europa anfÃĪngt), is coming out in late 2002.