Kokoro - Araceli Tinajero

A Mexican young woman goes to Japan in the early 80s.  She settles in the country, not knowing Japanese or much about Japanese culture, but eager to absorb both.  This she does gradually, in touch with ordinary people who take an interest in her.  In very little time the young Mexican is speaking Japanese and integrated into Japanese life, earning a living like ordinary people and learning the details of a culture foreign but alluring to her.  Japan enters her heart and becomes a part of her life's project.  Years later, having become a professor of Latin American literature in the U.S., and also an interpreter of the Japanese language, she will reminisce about her early experiences in Japan and the process by which she came to love the country.  This is the story told in this book: the transformation of a young woman through immersion in a foreign civilization that will become her own intellectually and spiritually.  It is the tale of Japan in the heart: Kokoro.