scattered all over the earth by yoko tawada

I flipped through comedies that weren’t the least bit funny, popular songs with an extremely limited vocabulary, ads plugging some kitchen utensil you’d use once or twice and then forget about. I can lie on the sofa and watch the performers without feeling like they’re watching me. On that stage, blinded by spotlights, I’m a fake star. Usually when I can’t stand it anymore I escape to the internet, but that day just the thought of the blue screen put me off, the kind of light that drags everyone out onto a bright stage whether they want to be there or not. As I turned my head so I could look out at the gloomy Copenhagen sky, I felt the silver light beyond the clouds start to glow inside me.ĭoing nothing is harder than you’d think. But that day I just wanted to relax, and avoid doing anything much. I like strolling along by the canal, stopping for coffee or at a used record store on the way, or going down to the town square, working my way into the crowd around a hot dog stand to see if there’s anyone I know waiting for one of those garish red sausages on a bun. It wasn’t the rain that kept me inside that day. There’s a stepping-stone path out front leading to a small park, and I never get tired of listening to the patter of rain falling on stone blending with that soft squishy sound of water seeping into the ground. I spent that afternoon lying on the sofa, hugging a cushion, watching TV with the volume turned down.

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.This is an excerpt from Scattered All Over the Earth by Yoko Tawada, translated from the Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani, published by Granta Books. Episodic and mesmerizing scenes flash vividly along, and soon they're all next off to Stockholm. 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. homemade language.'Īs she searches for anyone who can still speak her mother tongue, Hiruko soon makes new friends. 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. A mind-expanding, cheerfully dystopian new novel by Yoko Tawada, winner of the 2022 National Book Award

Scattered all over the earth by yoko tawada