Description

Hiruko, from the now vanished archipelago ‘somewhere between China and Polynesia’, and her band of friends have searched in vain for someone who speaks her native language. They finally track down Susanoo, a sushi chef from the same nation, but there’s a problem – he has lost the power of speech. As the companions set out to help Susanoo regain his voice, encountering magic radios, personality swaps and climate change fears, their friendship empowers them against despair and sets them to dreaming of a better word. But if Hiruko is ever to hear her mother tongue again, a sceptical aphasia specialist in Copenhagen is her last hope.

Suggested in the Stars carries on the astonishing, intrepid adventures of the band of friends in Scattered All Over the Earth, Yoko Tawada’s rollicking, touching, cheerfully dystopian novel, and delivers exploits that are even more chaotic and poignant.

Publisher Review

The novel is inventive at sentence level, absurd at plot level, yet strangely penetrating at psychological level… Margaret Mitsutani does an expert job… chaos and cleverness combine so well to bewitch the reader — Ronan Hession * Irish Times * A new kind of novel… (Margaret Mitsutani’s translation, incorporating so many different languages, rhyme schemes and linguistic misunderstandings, is also a serious accomplishment.) Suggested in the Stars teases a decisive and exciting finale to come, a further journey for this wild group of fit-together misfits. But for now, this second installment is a weird and wonderful adventure on its own * New York Times * Every Yoko Tawada novel pulls the ground out from under us, but gives new senses in return — Madeleine Thien Tawada writes beautifully about unbearable things — Sara Baume Reading Yoko Tawada is an immensely fun and occasionally bewildering experience. Suggested in the Stars…combines a linguistic playfulness with a mind-expanding worldview… A blisteringly imaginative writer who could not care less about following expectations * Guardian * Hugely enjoyable… a book pulsating with idiosyncrasies and inventiveness… a work of pluralism and belonging * Financial Times *