I read 3 Streets through its inclusion in the 2022 Year of Reading subscription from the English language bookstore Shakespeare and Company in Paris, France. Shakespeare and Company Staff Pick recommendation bookmark for Yoko Tawada's "3 Streets". The only crossover between the stories seemed to be that the protagonist had someone waiting for them back at home even while they continued to be distracted by the apparitions that they encountered.
I found 3 Streets to be a quick and easy read (it is only 80 pages) with very atmospheric descriptions of the locations, characters and ghosts that the protagonist encounters in their walks on “Kollwitzstrasse”, “Majakowskiring” and “Pushkin Allee." The streets are all real-life locations in East Berlin. That latter book also had somewhat dreamlike encounters with characters, some of whom could well have been ghosts, so perhaps it is characteristic of Tawada's style.
I've only read one other book of Tawada's shorter fiction 容疑者の夜行列車 Yōgisha no yakō ressha (2002). It is possible that the selection was made by choosing those stories which had encounters with ghosts. Review of the New Directions Storybook ND Hardcover (September 27, 2022) with 3 stories selected & translated by Margaret Mitsutani from the original Japanese language 百年の散歩（新潮文庫） (One Hundred Years of Walks*) (2017)ģ Streets consists of three short stories selected from Tawada's original Japanese book. Tawada received the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize in 1996, a German award to foreign writers in recognition of their contribution to German culture, and the Goethe Medal in 2005. Her Suspect on the Night Train won the Tanizaki Prize and Ito Sei Literary Prize in 2003. In 1999 she became writer-in-residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for four months. Tawada's Missing Heels received the Gunzo Prize for New Writers in 1991, and The Bridegroom Was a Dog received the Akutagawa Prize in 1993. In 1987 she published Nur da wo du bist da ist nichts-Anata no iru tokoro dake nani mo nai (A Void Only Where You Are), a collection of poems in a German and Japanese bilingual edition. She received her doctorate in German literature at the University of Zurich. Tawada was born in Tokyo, received her undergraduate education at Waseda University in 1982 with a major in Russian literature, then studied at Hamburg University where she received a master's degree in contemporary German literature. Yōko Tawada ( 多和田葉子 Tawada Yōko, born March 23, 1960) is a Japanese writer currently living in Berlin, Germany.
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