Amo, an African kidnapped to Europe as a boy, and Tamao, a Japanese exchange student in Germany, live in different countries but are being followed by the same shadow; Kazuko, a young professional tourist, is lured to Vietnam by a mysterious postcard; on the Canary Islands, a nameless translator battles a banana grove and a series of Saint Georges... These three tales by master storyteller Yoko Tawada cross cultures and histories with a sensuous playfulness. In Facing the Bridge, obsession becomes delight as the reader is whisked into a world where identities flicker and shift in a never-ending balance.

'Tawada writes beautifully about unbearable things' -- Sara Baume
'Magnificently strange' -- Rivka Galchen
'Every Yoko Tawada novel pulls the ground out from under us, but gives us new senses in return' -- Madeleine Thien
'Tawada disrupts our perception and reveals the terror and beauty of our world as we get lost in it, and regain our footing through reading her novels' -- Kit Fan
'What propels Tawada's stories is the unassailable logic of dreams and fairy tales, coupled with verbal energy. Tawada's images resonate simultaneously on different levels' * Village Voice *

Yoko Tawada writes in both Japanese and German. She has received the Akutagawa Prize among other awards, and is the author of Memoirs of a Polar Bear, The Bridegroom was a Dog, Scattered all Over the Earth, The Naked Eye and The Last Children of Tokyo, which won the National Book Award under the title The Emissary. Margaret Mitsutani is a translator of Yoko Tawada and Kenzaburö Öe.