*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.
