Yoko Morgenstern’s sensitive
exploration of art and political responsibility, of internal and external
perspectives on times of crisis, and of the interconnectedness of and analogies
between different (national) histories is stunning and makes Double Exile an
essential contribution to the literary landscape of the new millennium.
-- Maria Löschnigg, Professor of
English and Canadian Literature, University of Graz, Austria
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Y
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oko Morgenstern is originally
from Tokyo. She started creative writing while she was living in Canada. Her
short stories and essays have appeared in The
Montreal Review, The Globe and Mail,
Salon II, and The Great Lakes Review, among others. Her Japanese translation of The Printmaker’s Daughter by the
Canadian novelist Katherine Govier was published in Tokyo in June 2014.
Yoko
learned English and Creative Writing at the University of Toronto. She took two
ESL courses from 1997 to 1998, Academic Writing in 2008, and also participated
in the U of T Summer Writing School in 2008.
She
received a BA in Political Science from the University of Tsukuba, and a
Post-Graduate Diploma in Journalism from Sheridan College. Currently she is at
work on an MA in English and American Literature at the University of Bamberg.
Double
Exile is Yoko’s debut novel. It is a story centering on a young woman’s travels
to Germany, in hopes of obtaining the necessary information she needs to
complete her thesis.
Ayumi
has left her family and friends in Japan, and is on a mission to uncover as
much as she can about the trials and tribulations of the German writer Hans
Carossa.
During
the Nazi occupation, Hans refused to leave Germany as he did not wish to become
an exile. Ayumi is hoping to dig up all of the facts concerning Hans, and
finally get to the bottom of why he was labelled a controversial figure in
history.
During
her research, Ayumi encounters Alex, an old man who claims to have personally
known Hans. Believing that she has hit a gold mine, Ayumi devotes the rest of
her stay in Germany to Alex. As she unravels the harrowing truths surrounding
Hans, the narrative is drawn into the past where Hans narrates his own story.
Interweaving
the past and present, Ayumi struggles to not only understand Hans’ role in the
war, but her own misguided reasons for coming to Germany. As Alex and Ayumi
grow closer, Ayumi soon unearths several shocking truths that force her to not
only reassess her own relationship with Alex but ultimately, her own
relationship with her past and also the dark side of Japanese history.
As for
the Canadian/American context; Hans and his Jewish friend in Canada correspond
by using underground mail service. The model of this character is a Toronto-based
Jewish journalist who is a survivor of Nazi Germany as well as the imprisonment
by the Canadian government.
Yoko’s
novel has earned serious praise from all quarters. Katherine Govier, novelist
and a passionate multiculturalism activist, observes, “Double Exile is a
compact and moving tale that sheds light on the political choices made by those
writers who stayed home in Nazi Germany. Morgenstern’s straightforward, clean
style lets the story tell itself. Ayomi, backpacker from Tokyo, comes alive
with her honest drive to understand betrayal and loyalty --in their lives and
her own. Yoko Morgenstern is a debut novelist unafraid of complex questions,
and gifted with the simple touch.”
Says Laura
Lush, a poet and writer, “Many have written about the rise of Nazi Germany and
the indelible mark it has left in history. But none has told the story of the
plight of the German Jewish writers so well as Yoko Morgenstern has in Double
Exile. In a trifecta of countries, time,
and cultures, Morgenstern weaves a spellbinding psychological drama that
innocently begins when a graduate student from Japan comes to Germany to search
out the story of Hans Carossa, one of Germany’s greatest but seemingly most
forgotten modernist writers. In prose that brims with intelligence and
humanity, Morgenstern shows how Carossa and his contemporaries struggle with their
decision to stay or flee Nazi Germany, a decision that results in equally
unfavourable fates—accusations of pro-Nazi alliances if they stay or internment
in countries such as Canada if they leave.”
Yoko's debut novel is being launched in Toronto on July 22 at the Japan Foundation, Toronto. Click here for details: Double Exile Book Release
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