Fifteen outstanding writers answered editor Wendy Lesser's call for original essays on the subject of language-the one they grew up with, and the English in which they write.Despite American assumptions about polite Chinese discourse, Amy Tan believes that there was nothing discreet about the Chinese language with which she grew up. Leonard Michaels spoke only Yiddish until he was five, and still found its traces in his English language writing. Belgian-born Luc Sante loved his French Tintin and his Sartre, but only in English could he find "words of one syllable” that evoke American bars and bus stops. And although Louis Begley writes novels in English and addresses family members in Polish, he still speaks French with his wife-the language of their courtship. As intimate as one's dreams, as private as a secret identity, these essays examine and reveal the writers' pride, pain, and pleasure in learning a new tongue, revisiting an old one, and reconciling the joys and frustrations of each.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Introduction Wendy Lesser
BANGLA
The Way Back Bharati Mukherjee
CHINESE
Yes and No Amy Tan
CZECH
Trouble with Language Josef Skvorecky
DUTCH
Circus Biped Bert Keizer
FRENCH
French Without Tears Luc Sante
GERMAN
Prelude Thomas Laqueur
GIKUYU
Recovering the Original Ngugi wa Thiong'o
GREEK
Split Self Nicholas Papandreou
ITALIAN
Limpid, Blue, Poppy M. J. Fitzgerald
KOREAN
Personal and Singular Ha-yun Jung
POLISH
On Being an Orphaned Writer Louis Begley
RUSSIAN
The Mother Tongue Between Two Slices of Rye Gary Shteyngart
SCOTS
Boswell and Mrs. Miller James Campbell
SPANISH
Footnotes to a Double Life Ariel Dorfman
YIDDISH
My Yiddish Leonard Michaels
About the Contributors
