Arvāḥ milīyat nadārand: Persian 1402

Talisman is a collection of essays by Yoko Tawada (b. 1960 in Tokyo), a Japanese novelist and essayist, who has lived in Germany for many years and writes in both Japanese and German. In the essays of this book, Tawada goes through this experience of living between two languages and sometimes as a tourist and sometimes as an immigrant, he tries to present a new image of what he sees, hears, and experiences in Germany. Tawada deftly stimulates the reader's imagination, frees him from the shackles of traditional meanings, and dispels the cultural stereotypes of East/West and familiar/stranger. In the book Souls Have No Nationality, Yoko Tawada talks about the experience of living between two languages; From the ambiguity, mystery, and strangeness of the language for someone who has a different mother tongue. He sometimes uses unexpected words, alphabets, and signs to offer a new understanding of language and translation. According to Tavada, translation is not just translating words from one language to another language, but primarily mental concepts and meanings that are translated into words. In his own words, "Other languages draw our attention to the fact that language, even the mother tongue, is nothing but a translation."