Behind the Written Word: Q and A with Katy O’Grady

As revealed by recent news about book banning and censorship, reading is empowering, illuminating, and community-building. Also potentially threatening to those who are afraid of these very values.

Katy O’Grady studies the rich history behind the act of reading and the use of the written word. Her interest in the topic led her to Asia—virtually for now—and, specifically, to the royal imperial Heian court in Japan (794–1185 CE) and to village women in Hunan province in China (1750 to 1950 CE). Separated by class and time, women in these two different settings communicated with their own systems of writing, or scripts, known as hiragana in Japan and nüshu in China.

 In July, Katy was selected to present a summary of her work in a student lightning session at the annual meeting of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing.

Q: When we first talked about your work, you said you were interested in the “history of reading.” We all read, we all know what history is—but what is the History of Reading and how did you get interested in it?

A: Some years back, I read Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, by Christopher de Hamel, in which the author talks about all the images that have been created of the Virgin Mary reading. It made me think—As a poor girl, could she read? From there, I began to wonder--Who was reading when? What groups were allowed to read? I came upon the academic field that studies the history of reading. A lot of it is very micro—maybe, library records in Scotland in the 1700s. I have a broader concept for a book I want to write. I even have a working title: “Fear the Reader: How Reading Has Made People Powerful and Dangerous for Five Thousand Years.”

Q: We are ready for your book! Related to your presentation, how did you apply this concept to the women in Japan?

A: I had read that women in the Heian Court invented their own script because they had all this time on their hands and they were bored. But, unfortunately, that is inaccurate, or as one scholar refers to it, “a persistent rumor.”

This sample of hiragana script is a poem written by Lady Ise, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015

Prior to the Heian Court [around 790 CE], Japanese was only a spoken language. They created a written language using Chinese characters. I am totally oversimplifying, but when that that script alone did not meet their needs, they added other forms of writing, which developed into hiragana, still used today. The exchange of notes and poems was a big part of court life, and both men and women used hiragana. Men also wrote in the full Chinese characters, but women were only allowed to use hiragana, which may have been how the idea that it was a gender-specific language began.

The interesting thing was that women started to write prose in hiragana, too. The Tale of Genji is the best known. It is said to be written by Lady Murasaki, the name of a character in the book. She also wrote a diary. In this research, I am looking at her and two other women’s diaries to see what the ability of knowing how to read and write did for these women in that period.

Q: I assume you are looking at English translations, but what are you looking for?

A: For example, Lady Murasaki writes about self-doubt and her connections with other people. Sei Shonagon’s diary, known as the Pillow Book, is very witty and banter-y, it feels very current. In that culture, women were hidden from view. They were hidden by screens, they talked behind fans. They felt great embarrassment if they were out in public. The writing gave them a way to express themselves, to expose themselves, an outlet to deal with the emotions of life.

Then, in researching hiragana, I stumbled upon nüshu in China. In this case, the women did invent a script for themselves so they would have this tool available to them.

Q: What is the nüshu story?

A: The origins are murky. The Jiangyong Region of Hunan Province [in southern China] had a local dialect with no written script until the women developed it. It was not a secret language, but men were not interested in learning how to write it. The oldest known use is a coin from the 1700s with some nüshu characters on it. But most of the materials did not last.

This sample of nushu script was written by Gao Yinxian, and reprinted in a blog post by Lisa Huang at https://www.alphabettes.org/noto-sans-nushu-a-script-created-by-women-from-a-remote-region-enters-the-google-fonts-noto-sans-family/

The language was discouraged and then banned under Communist China. In the 1950s, a Chinese researcher discovered it from an elderly relative. He wrote a bit about it, then was pressured by the government to stop. In the 1980s, Chinese researchers re-discovered it, and they found a handful of elderly women who still knew how to write it. Most of what we know is filtered through time, as very few of the original materials exist.

These were peasants, poor women working in the fields. Their story is very different than the court women in Japan. They taught each other the script through songs and repetitive chants. They wrote letters to each other, or booklets when they got married, or used it to perform sworn sisterhood relationships. Women would get married and move away to their husbands’ homes, and it was a way of connecting.

 As with the Japanese women, a lot of the writing was to deal with sorrow and the angst of life.

Q: I am thinking about how people today create language through texting or through rap. I wonder what scholars will think a few hundred years from now.

A: Language is constantly evolving—some of it may be passing, like emojis. People are already studying the language of the Internet, such as Because Internet.

Q: You mentioned you started this project for a Research Methods class. Tell me about the methods you used—especially without knowing the language and during COVID-19.

A: I had read about the Japanese women a few years ago. For the class, we had to choose a topic, write a topic sentence, and locate primary and secondary resources. The language barrier was a challenge, especially with the nüshu. The Japanese works have been translated, with introductions by the translators about their approach. You can read different translations of the same pieces. Nüshu has more of a gap.

The lack of ability to read in the language is a barrier, to be sure. I have to put in a disclaimer that I am writing as a white American woman who does not know the language. But what I am trying to glean is how this writing was empowering and what it did for them. The other challenge—you can’t just look at the text, you have to understand the context.

The end product for the class was a research proposal. We needed a literature review, preliminary findings, what we wanted to explore further, and where we might be able to present or publish.

Q: I don’t usually think about these ideas and they are very intellectually stimulating, thank you.

A: It’s fun for me to talk about. And it’s intriguing to see how people have been able to use the tools of writing and reading over time. One of the components of my “Fear the Reader” concept is suppression and censorship and book-banning, which is so timely. What they are afraid of is people reading. There is a fear of the power that reading gives people.  

You hear about the “death of reading,” but we are reading more than ever. On screen, social media, tweets, constantly, maybe not literary works, but reading is very much that piece where the magic happens. Reading is everywhere.

It is amazing we can look at little shapes and it transforms into a concept instantly. It’s a fascinating brain process.

When Katy O’Grady is not delving into the history of reading and writing, she operates a very current-day writing and editing business. Her website is http://www.docreative.com.