There is a certain delicacy to the novels of Yoko Tawada. They possess a lightness that is unusual, especially given her themes. Against the backdrop of dying cultures and apocalypse, her characters float across the surface of her pages, not so much unbothered as they are unimpeded. It is strange then that one of her most recent works, Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel (translated by Susan Bernofsky) takes as its inspiration and focal point the work of Europe’s most brutal poet. How can Celan and Tawada be reconciled?
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