*From the author of The Last Children of Tokyo* A mind-expanding, cheerfully dystopian novel about friendship, difference and what it means to belong, by a National Book Award-winning novelist. Welcome to the not-too-distant future. Japan, having vanished into the sea, is now remembered as 'the land of sushi'. Hiruko, a former citizen and a climate refugee herself, has a job teaching immigrant children in Denmark with her invented language Panska (Pan-Scandinavian): 'homemade language. no country to stay in. three countries I experienced. no time to learn three different languages. might mix up. insufficient space in brain. so made new language. homemade language most Scandinavian people understand'. Hiruko soon makes new friends to join her in her travels searching for anyone who can still speak her mother tongue: Knut, a graduate student in linguistics, who is fascinated by her Panska; Akash, an Indian man who lives as a woman, wearing a red sari; Nanook, an Eskimo from Greenland, first mistaken as another refugee from the land of sushi; and Nora, who works at the Karl Marx House in Trier. All these characters take turns narrating chapters, which feature an umami cooking competition; a dead whale; an ultra- nationalist named Breivik; Kakuzo robots; uranium; and an Andalusian bull fight. Episodic, vividly imagined and mesmerising, Scattered All Over the Earth is another sui generis masterwork by Yoko Tawada.

Yoshiro celebrated his hundredth birthday many years ago, but every morning before work he still goes running in the park with his rent-a-dog. He is one of the many aged-elderly in Japan and he might, he thinks, live forever. Life for Yoshiro isn't as simple as it used to be. Pollution and natural disasters have scarred the face of the Earth, and even common foods are hard to come by. Still, Yoshiro's only real worry is the future of his great-grandson Mumei, who, like other children of his generation, was born frail and grey-haired, old before he was ever young. As daily life in Tokyo grows harder, a secretive organisation embarks on an audacious plan to find a cure for the children of Japan - might Yoshiro's great-grandson, Mumei, be the key? A dreamlike story of filial love and glimmering hope, The Last Children of Tokyo is a delicate glimpse of our future from one of Japan's most celebrated writers.

Japan, after suffering from a massive irreparable disaster, cuts itself off from the world. Children are so weak they can barely stand or walk: the only people with any get-go are the elderly. Mumei lives with his grandfather Yoshiro, who worries about him constantly. They carry on a day-to-day routine in what could be viewed as a post-Fukushima time, with all the children born ancient-frail and gray-haired, yet incredibly compassionate and wise. Mumei may be enfeebled and feverish, but he is a beacon of hope, full of wit and free of self-pity and pessimism. Yoshiro concentrates on nourishing Mumei, a strangely wonderful boy who offers "the beauty of the time that is yet to come." A delightful, irrepressibly funny book, The Emissary is filled with light. Yoko Tawada, deftly turning inside-out "the curse," defies gravity and creates a playful joyous novel out of a dystopian one, with a legerdemain uniquely her own.

A mind-expanding, cheerfully dystopian new novel by Yoko Tawada, winner of the 2022 National Book Award.

Welcome to the not-too-distant future: Japan, having vanished from the face of the earth, is now remembered as “the land of sushi.” Hiruko, its former citizen and a climate refugee herself, has a job teaching immigrant children in Denmark with her invented language Panska (Pan-Scandinavian): “homemade language. no country to stay in. three countries I experienced. insufficient space in brain. so made new language. homemade language.”

As she searches for anyone who can still speak her mother tongue, Hiruko soon makes new friends. Her troupe travels to France, encountering an umami cooking competition; a dead whale; an ultra-nationalist named Breivik; unrequited love; Kakuzo robots; red herrings; uranium; an Andalusian matador. Episodic and mesmerizing scenes flash vividly along, and soon they’re all next off to Stockholm.

With its intrepid band of companions, Scattered All Over the Earth (the first novel of a trilogy) may bring to mind Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland or a surreal Wind in the Willows, but really is just another sui generis Yoko Tawada masterwork.

The always astonishing Yoko Tawada here takes a walk on the supernatural side of the street. In "Kollwitzstrasse," as the narrator muses on former East Berlin's new bourgeois health food stores, so popular with wealthy young people, a ghost boy begs her to buy him the old-fashioned sweets he craves. She worries that sugar's still sugar-but why lecture him, since he's already dead? Then white feathers fall from her head and she seems to be turning into a crane . . . Pure white kittens and a great Russian poet haunt "Majakowskiring": the narrator who reveres Mayakovsky's work is delighted to meet his ghost. And finally, in "Pushkin Allee," a huge Soviet-era memorial of soldiers comes to life-and, "for a scene of carnage everything was awfully well-ordered." Each of these stories opens up into new dimensions the work of this magisterial writer.

*From the author of The Last Children of Tokyo* A mind-expanding, cheerfully dystopian novel about friendship, difference and what it means to belong, by a National Book Award-winning novelist. Welcome to the not-too-distant future. Japan, having vanished into the sea, is now remembered as 'the land of sushi'. Hiruko, a former citizen and a climate refugee herself, has a job teaching immigrant children in Denmark with her invented language Panska (Pan-Scandinavian): 'homemade language. no country to stay in. three countries I experienced. no time to learn three different languages. might mix up. insufficient space in brain. so made new language. homemade language most Scandinavian people understand'. Hiruko soon makes new friends to join her in her travels searching for anyone who can still speak her mother tongue: Knut, a graduate student in linguistics, who is fascinated by her Panska; Akash, an Indian man who lives as a woman, wearing a red sari; Nanook, an Eskimo from Greenland, first mistaken as another refugee from the land of sushi; and Nora, who works at the Karl Marx House in Trier. All these characters take turns narrating chapters, which feature an umami cooking competition; a dead whale; an ultra- nationalist named Breivik; Kakuzo robots; uranium; and an Andalusian bull fight. Episodic, vividly imagined and mesmerising, Scattered All Over the Earth is another sui generis masterwork by Yoko Tawada.

Ysko Tawada: Voices from Everywhere is the first volume of criticism dedicated to the work of Ysko Tawada, one of the most highly acclaimed writers of her generation. Douglas Slaymaker has collected a range of essays including many that were featured at the 2006 MLA Conference, where a presidential panel featuring Ysko Tawada was organized by MLA President Marjorie Perloff, who has contributed a preface to this volume. The essays explore the plurality of voices and cultures in Tawada's work and push on to explicate the poetics and intellectual underpinnings of her writing. Analyses of her fiction are paired with examinations of its philosophic and aesthetic foundations. The essayists represent a wide range of scholars and translators who are intimate with Tawada's work in German, Japanese, and/or English. Many of the essays begin as close readings of the German and Japanese texts.Ysko Tawada: Voices from Everywhere is an essential collection for anyone with an interest in this important young writer.

Yoeko Tawada: Voices from Everywhere is the first volume of criticism dedicated to the work of Yoeko Tawada, one of the most highly acclaimed writers of her generation. Douglas Slaymaker has collected a range of essays including many that were featured at the 2006 MLA Conference, where a presidential panel featuring Yoeko Tawada was organized by MLA President Marjorie Perloff, who has contributed a preface to this volume. The essays explore the plurality of voices and cultures in Tawada's work and push on to explicate the poetics and intellectual underpinnings of her writing. Analyses of her fiction are paired with examinations of its philosophic and aesthetic foundations. The essayists represent a wide range of scholars and translators who are intimate with Tawada's work in German, Japanese, and/or English. Many of the essays begin as close readings of the German and Japanese texts.Yoeko Tawada: Voices from Everywhere is an essential collection for anyone with an interest in this important young writer.

From Japan to Vietnam to Amsterdam to the Canary Islands, these three new tales by master storyteller Yoko Tawada float between cultures, identities, and the dreamwork of the imagination.
"When he watched Michael Jackson's videos, every cell in Tamao's body started to seethe: he even felt his appearance begin to change. His friends all said plastic surgery was in bad taste. But didn't everyone harbor a secret desire for a new face? His own was as plain as a burlap sack, so he put it out of his mind and studied hard to compensate for how dull he looked. He told himself that fretting over one's appearance was a job for women. But deep down, doesn't every man who lacks confidence in his looks yearn for that moment when the Beast turns into a handsome young man?"--from "Facing the Bridge"
Reading Yoko Tawada becomes an obsession, like watching the films of Catherine Deneuve. In "Facing the Bridge," Tawada's second story collection with New Directions, obsession becomes delight as the reader is absorbed into three tales where identities flicker and shift within borders as wide as the mind.

The Bridegroom Was a Dog is perhaps the Japanese-German writer Yoko Tawada s most famous story. Its initial publication in 1998 garnered admiration from The New Yorker, who praised it as, fast-moving, mysteriously compelling tale that has the dream quality of Kafka.

The Bridegroom Was a Dog begins with a schoolteacher telling a fable to her students. In the fable, a princess promises her hand in marriage to a dog that has licked her bottom clean. The story takes an even stranger twist when that very dog appears to the schoolteacher in real life as a dog-like man. They develop a very sexual, romantic courtship with many allegorical overtones much to the chagrin of her friends."