The Fall of Language in the Age of English

Born in Tokyo but also raised & educated in the United States, Minae Mizumura acknowledges the value of a universal language in the pursuit of knowledge, yet also appreciates the different ways of seeing offered by the work of multiple tongues. She warns against losing this precious diversity.

Universal languages have always played a pivotal role in advancing human societies, Mizumura shows, but in the globalized world of the Internet, English is fast becoming the sole common language of the human race. The process is unstoppable, & striving for total language equality is delusional—except when a particular knowledge is at stake, gained through writings in a specific language.

Mizumura calls these writings “texts” & their ultimate form “literature.” Only through literature, and more fundamentally through the various languages that give birth to a variety of literatures, can we nurture and enrich humanity. Incorporating her own experiences as a writer & a lover of language, and embedding a parallel history of Japanese, Mizumura offers an intimate look at the phenomenona of individual & national expression.

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Minae Mizumura was born in Tokyo, moved to New York at the age of twelve, & studied French literature at Yale University. Acclaimed for her audacious experimentation & skillful storytelling, Mizumura has won major literary awards for all four of her novels—one of which, A True Novel, was recently published in English.

Mari Yoshihara is the author of Embracing the East: White Women and American Orientalism & Musicians from a Different Shore: Asians & Asian Americans in Classical Music.

Juliet Winters Carpenter is an award-winning translator