The Experience Of Foreigners And Their Crossing Borders In Jan-Philipp Sendker s Novel Das Herzenhören (2002) (The Art of Hearing Heartbeats) Through Transculturality Discourse

Abstract

Crossing borders has become a catchword in modern times and focuses on the concepts of transculturality and transculturation. On the basis of these concepts lie the cultural borderlines which colonisation have made easier to cross and, thus, created contact zones where you can find cultural hybridity. The aim of this study is to present the transculturality concept in contemporary cultures, which will be presented through some works from modern German literature. This study deals with Jan-Philipp Sendker s bestseller novel The Art of Hearing Heartbeats (2002), which has been translated into many languages and gained worldwide attention. The novel tells the extraordinary story of blind Tin Win and disabled MiMi. Travelling on his back, she tries to describe him the world he cannot see, but he perceives it on his own way with his extraordinary hearing abilitythe art of hearing heartbeats. But his odyssey leads him a life far away from Mi Mi and his home Burma, first to England, then in the United States. At the end of his life he finds his way back to MiMi and his home Burma. The study focuses on novel analysis in postcolonial Burma, which shows many examples of crossing borderlines with the British culture. In order to understand our contemporary societies and cultures showing characteristics of cultural hybridity, some examples are illustrated although there are different impulses and reasons for each of them.