Read. Talk. Share.
Join our August book club meeting online! Simply send an email to
info-seattle@goethe.de and receive the Zoom access code. Let's keep reading and sharing experiences with the material!
The book club is free and open to everyone interested, but participants must purchase the individual texts themselves and are expected to have read the title to be discussed prior to the meeting.
Still need to get ahold of the book? Support local businesses like our community partner Elliott Bay Book Company! Call them at 206-624-6600 or visit their
website to place an order.
Feel free to read the novel either in German or in its English translation; the discussion will be in English.
© New Directions
About the novel:
“
Memoirs of a Polar Bear stars three generations of talented writers and performers. Famous stars of the literary world, the circus, and the zoo, they happen to be polar bears who move human society. In part one, the matriarch, enjoying “the intimacy of being alone with my pen,” accidentally writes a bestselling autobiography in the Soviet Union. In part two, her daughter Tosca moves to East Germany and pioneers a thrilling circus act. And Tosca’s son—the last of their line—is Knut, born in part three and raised by a human keeper in relatively happy circumstances in the Berlin zoo.” (New Directions)
In
Memories of a Polar Bear, dream levels and reality merrily merge into one another. Seemingly self-evident things appear in a new light. Myths from different parts of the world - for example, that bears steal the souls of people - come to life just as much as contemporary historical reality. The novel can thus be read from a contemporary historical, political, and philosophical perspective; as a satire on migrant literature or simply as an entertaining animal story.
About the author:
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 published several books—stories, novels, poems, plays, essays—in both languages. She has received numerous awards for her writing including the Akutagawa Prize, the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize, the Tanizaki Prize, the Kleist Prize, and the Goethe Medal.
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