On the heels of Scattered All Over the Earth, Yoko Tawada's new Suggested in the Stars carries on her band of friends' astonishing and intrepid adventures.
Deeply weird ... Tawada’s work reminds us that weirdness is not always a bad thing ... The novel is an optimistic portrait of pluralism. While other writers might be hesitant to channel experiences outside their own, Tawada boldly embodies the voices of characters who are trans, intellectually disabled or less than politically correct ... All this kumbaya inclusiveness could easily get sticky sweet, but the novel’s sheer wackiness keeps that from happening ... Might be a new kind of novel. Tawada’s prose is light on its feet, informal while still feeling deliberate, providing delicate and straightforward descriptions of events that are often complicated and bizarre.
A refreshing new direction in speculative fiction. I found myself calling it futurative fiction, so smart, subtle and cogent is her transformation of today’s politics into a could-be tomorrow ... Intriguing and intricate.
Mitsutani, thankfully, returns as Tawada’s translator-of-choice, again adroitly parsing anglophone equivalents of the renowned polyglot’s intricate wordplay.
