The Emissary

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.

Author: Yoko Tawada
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Published: 04/24/2018
Pages: 128
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.35lbs
Size: 7.70h x 5.10w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9780811227629


Award: National Book Awards - Winner


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 01/01/2018
Publishers Weekly 01/29/2018
Kirkus Reviews 02/15/2018
Shelf Awareness 05/22/2018

About the Author
Tawada, Yoko: - Yoko Tawada was born in Tokyo in 1960, moved to Hamburg when she was twenty-two, and then to Berlin in 2006. She writes in both Japanese and German and has received the Akutagawa, Lessing, Kleist, Noma, Adelbert von Chamisso and Tanizaki prizes as well as the Goethe Medal. In 2018 her novel The Emissary won the National Book Award.Mitsutani, Margaret: - Margaret Mitsutani is a translator of Yoko Tawada (sharing her National Book Award) and Kenzaburo Oe (Japan's 1994 Nobel Prize laureate).