You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Dialogue Books has signed a novel and an essay collection from the award-winning author Yoko Tawada.
Literary editorial director Hannah Chukwu acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to Spontaneous Acts and Exophony from Daisy Chandley at PFD. US rights stand with Barbara Epler at New Directions, who is publishing the novel Spontaneous Acts as Paul Celan and the Trans-tibetan Angel.
The blurb reads: “Spontaneous Acts is an exquisite novel following protagonist Patrik as he attempts to find connection in a world that constantly overwhelms him. The solace of reading, conversation, music, of seeing and being seen weave Tawada’s book together across decades, languages and cultures, and reaches out to all of those who find meaning and even obsession in the words of those before us." Publication is set for July 2024.
The publisher added of the essay collection: “Exophony is an incisive and daring interrogation of the author’s place in the world as a Japanese writer working across multiple languages. It complements Spontaneous Acts perfectly, through Tawada’s delight in playing with the limits of language, and her interrogation of language’s relationship to larger questions of power, colonialism and belonging.” Exophony is currently being translated from the original Japanese, and publication is set for July 2025.
Tawada was born in Tokyo in 1960, moved to Hamburg when she was 22 and then to Berlin in 2006. She writes in both Japanese and German, and has published several books—stories, novels, poems, plays, essays—in both languages and has received numerous awards for her writing. New Directions has published various titles of hers in the US and she has been published in the UK by Granta.
Chukwu said: “Yoko Tawada is an extraordinary, singular author, whose work I have admired for many years. We are so proud and excited to be publishing her new work at Dialogue Books. She is an author who helps us to see the world anew, and encourages us to expand our view of what language and literature can do. I cannot wait to bring these incredible works to readers.”