3 Streets

Published August 16th 2022 by New Directions, Hardcover 64 pages

The always astonishing Yoko Tawada here takes a walk on the supernatural side of the street. In “Kollwitzstrasse,” as the narrator muses on former East Berlin’s new bourgeois health food stores, so popular with the wealthy young people, a ghost boy begs her to buy him the old-fashioned sweets he craves. She worries that sugar’s still sugar—but why lecture him, since he’s already dead? Then white feathers fall from her head and she seems to be turning into a crane . . . Pure white kittens and a great Russian poet haunt “Majakowskiring”: the narrator who reveres Mayakovsky’s work is delighted to meet his ghost. And finally, in “Pushkin Allee,” a huge Soviet-era memorial of soldiers comes to life—and, “for a scene of carnage everything was awfully well-ordered.” Each of these stories glows, and opens up into new dimensions the work of this magisterial writer.

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User Reviews

Antonio Delgado

Rating: really liked it
In these post war stories, the past is a spirit that haunts the present in the form of words, roads, statues. This haunting happens through conversation and memories that expand in a space in between cultures and languages.

Sarah-Hope

Rating: really liked it
This title just didn't work for me. It had a sort of ephemerality to it that made me feel as if the author didn't want to let me too close to any of the characters.

Andrew

Rating: really liked it
Not sure if the story is underdeveloped or if it's a translation issue, but this one was underwhelming, confusing, and a bit nonsensical-- not in the typical odd way of speculative fiction I enjoy.

Alan

Rating: really liked it
'The city is an amusement park of the senses, a rehearsal for revolution, a restaurant where loneliness is devoured, a workshop for words.'

Three short stories from the imagination of Yoko Tawada, reflecting her connections with Germany and the German language. These are the kind of stories where you just have to let the words take you on a journey, as small, seemingly unimportant details suddenly take the narrator off into a spiral of musings and observations. Haunting, slightly surreal at times, the stories have a dream-like quality about them.

I can't quite give it top stars, mostly because of my failings in not getting some of the references and allusions to (for me) obscure artists and philosophers. It is, however, beautifully written, as ever, and excellently translated by Margaret Mitsutani. This would be a perfect introduction for anyone who hasn't read any previous work by Tawada. 4.5 stars.