The Naked Eye

The Naked Eye by Yoko Tawada is a mesmerizing novel that blends reality, dreamlike storytelling, and political commentary. It follows a young Vietnamese girl who, after being unexpectedly taken to East Germany for a conference, finds herself stranded in a foreign land. Unable to return home, she drifts through Berlin and Paris, living in a haze of displacement and obsession with French actress Catherine Deneuve. As she navigates an unfamiliar world, her identity becomes intertwined with the films she watches, blurring the line between fiction and reality. Tawada’s novel explores themes of exile, language, and the surreal nature of cultural alienation.