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Paper short abstract

The paper will focus on the intertextual references in Tawada’s trilogy to mythology with a stress on the mythological structure of drifting. I will focus on the mode of drifting and I will discuss the structural disparity arising from the fact that the work is composed as a trilogy.

Paper long abstract

Archipelago of the Sun is the third volume of Tawada Yoko’s trilogy, preceded by Scattared All Over the Earth and Suggested by the Stars. In this final part the journey of the main protagonist Hiruko, who has invented and uses an artificial language called “Panska” (Pan-Scandinavian), takes the characters to the sea and there they become even more loquacious. The journey to the vanished native country of Hiruko is hindered, but the protagonists’ drifting reaches a conclusion when Hiruko positions herself as a “home” or an “island”. Their story is always told in the first person and it travels through space-time and texts but among all the references and intertextual suggestions, it seems that the framework of mythology is the most important. Its influence has to do not only with citations but also with the very mythological structure of the protagonists’ drifting and the place they reach in the end. In my paper I will focus on the mode of drifting and I will discuss the structural disparity arising from the fact that the work is composed as a trilogy.