The Genius of Language : Fifteen Writers Reflect on Their Mother Tongues

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Summary: Comments Worth Reading
Review: As someone with no ear at all for foreign languages, I find it amazing that these people become writers and then choose to write in what to them is a foreign language. Even more, they write it so much better than the rest of us.

They also reflect on how their bi-lingualism makes their English better. It seems that the effort of learning the second language gives them somewhat of a drive to find ways to express themselves in English what might be an easy thing to express in their own tongue. As a result, they learn ways to use English that stretch the language to its limit.

To have gotten fifteen writers of the caliber contributing essays to this book has to be considered a major coup on Wendy Lesser's part. This book provides an insight to language that is astounding.

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Summary: Satisfyingly dives into the many realms of language
Review: If you are at all interested in language, language-acquisition, and how language (multi-linguilism) and life/identity intertwine, you'll love curling up with this book. There are 15 essays, arranged by the non-English (mother-tongue) language of the writer. Each of the six writers I have read thus far have approached the subject in wholly different (and mostly fascinating) lights. Tan is mercilessly sharp and funny while asking how seriously we should take the "language-shapes-reality" theory and while illustrating the fallacies of Chinese language/culture stereotpyes. Ariel Dorfman brilliantly uses an unconventional essay structure to probe and deconstruct his conflicted journey through his bilinguilism (Spanish/English)with extraordinary intelligence and linguistic/psychological force and sensitivity. With such a variety of languages, writers, styles/experiences, what's not to love?

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Summary: A survey of how writers alienated from their mother tongue
Review: Wendy Lesser asked fifteen modern writers to reflect on their formative experiences with language and culture, and her Genius Of Language is the result: a survey of how writers alienated from their mother tongue embraced English and faced exile from both their culture and their own language. Essays by Amy Tan, Louis Begley and others provide important keys to understanding the process of adapting to another language and all its cultural implications.