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.
