Author Statement

I am the offspring of Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II—one of those peoples to whom citizenship was denied, whose dignity was systematically stripped away. This history lives in me. I write from a place of exile—of language and geography, of gender and citizenship, of identity.

In my poetry and prose, I do not seek to provide answers. Every person I meet is for me—at first glance—also potentially an exile. And so, I try to listen—to fractures, to margins, to interrupted voices. In this chaotic cacophany I have found an opening, a point of meaning—perhaps even a form of resistance—in the act of writing itself: as a dumbfounded witness to the fragmentation, the repositioning, the shifting ground we now live on. Writing gives me ground to stand on. Without it, I stand nowhere. Writing opens the possibility that something larger than me might come forth and create meaning for others as well.

Memory

I carry my name as my responsibility. In the Japanese tradition, Shintani is a variant of Araya, which invokes the concept of ālaya-vijñāna—the storehouse consciousness. This eighth and most fundamental form of awareness, according to the Vijñānavāda school, gathers all impressions of lived experience, seeds future existence, and underlies all other states of mind.

As a writer, I dwell in this field of memory and continuity. My work is both a preservation and a transmutation of the impressions I have received. Whether in music, literature, or lived moments, I tend to what has been stored—carefully, fiercely, sometimes with silence.

I carry what was, to seed what might become.

Milestones

Born in Los Angeles 1953.

Master of Music in Conducting USC (Los Angeles) 1980; Kapellmeisterprüfung Musikhochschule Stuttgart 1983. Assistant to Dennis Russell Davies, Stuttgart Opera 1982-84; guest conducting, primarily new music 1982-1997; work with Pierre Boulez & ensemble intercontemporain, Paris 1989; Diplôme d’études approfondies in ‘Music and Musicology of the 20th Century’ IRCAM / EHESS (Paris) 1992. Founder of music ensemble Prisme, Paris.

Founder of Ensemble Neue Musik and teaching at Musikhochschule Stuttgart 1994-96. Work in music industry 1996-2004: A&R and IT at Universal Edition, Vienna; project manager for music downloads, publishing, and later finances at BMG, Munich. Numerous publications, broadcasts, lectures and translations.

Doctoral defense 12 April 2008 (summa cum laude) at Université Paris-Est, title: Gendertronics. Toward A ‘lecture féminine’ of Emerging Musical Technologies and Their Aesthetics – Gerhard Stäbler, Terre Thaemlitz, Miss Kittin. Docent, author, guest lecturer and translator of music texts 2005-2016. Institutional affiliations: docent for “Musikkonzepte nach 1945” [Music Concepts after 1945] at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design, Germany, 2005-2012, and Researcher at LISAA, Université Paris-Est, France, 2013-2019.

2000-2022 Resident of Stuttgart, Germany. Got married in 2005. Retired from teaching in 2012 and switched to writing full time. Did my best at a lot of stuff, published, won some tiny literary prizes, tried not to go buggy, and wished I had a dog.

2020 Covid. 2021 Husband left. 2022 I abandoned Stuttgart and my beloved, remodelled apartment. Moved to a senior residence on the shore of the magnificent Elbe River in Hamburg. 2023 Travelled the globe. Now in Bavaria, doing time.

2024. Finally finished long novel, Paris Choice.