Katrin von Maltzahn
JAPAN GUIDE
A glossary of 229 words

Awarded by the Stiftung Deutsche Buchkunst: 
The Most Beautiful German Books of 2023

JAPAN GUIDE
A glossary of 229 words
15 x 22 cm, 236 pages (including 28 experimental color pages, a selection of 28 pencil drawings)
  English / German / partly Japanese

Published 2022 by Textem-Verlag, Hamburg
www.textem-verlag.de
ISBN 978-3-86485-275-6

Design: Book Book Berlin, Constanze Hein and Laura Hähnel
Concept: Book Book Berlin, Katrin von Maltzahn
Printing and binding: DZA Druckerei zu Altenburg, Germany
Printing of color pages and drawings: Office Offset Berlin, Jan Blessing

Text and drawings capture a trip to Japan and the following visits to the country via my imagination. The observations are subjective. They are compared and linked to the familiar, marveled at, admired, critically observed, explored.

The impetus for this book came from failed attempts to learn the Japanese language in Germany. This led to the awareness of how closely language skills are linked to experiences that go far beyond vocabulary. In retrospect, the journey and subsequent contemplations provided me with missing links. They form the basis for a new relationship.