This book examines how early research on literary activities outside national literatures such as émigré literature or diasporic literature conceived of the loss of ¿mother-tongue¿ as a tragedy, and how it perpetuated the ideology of national language by relying on the dichotomy of native language/foreign language. It transcends these limitations by examining modern Japanese literature and literary criticism through modern philology, the vernacularization movement, and Korean-Japanese literature. Through the insights of recent philosophical/linguistic theories, it reveals the political problems of the notion of ¿mother-tongue¿ in literary and linguistic theories and proposes strategies to realize genuinely ¿exophonic¿ and ¿translational¿ literature beyond the confines of nation. Examining the