Archipelago of the Sun

Suggested in the Stars author Tawada concludes her trilogy following Japanese expat Hiruko with an endlessly playful and deeply moving tale of language and the meaning it offers. Having settled in Denmark years earlier, Hiruko was recently shocked to find that her home country no longer appears on maps and no one seems to remember it. Accompanied by five friends, she voyages into the Baltic Sea on a Wes Anderson–esque mail boat, hoping to see for herself whether Japan is still out there or if it’s sunk into the ocean. The ship’s “private UN” gathers at mealtimes in the dining room to converse in English and their respective native languages (Danish, German, and Japanese), along with Hiruko’s invented Scandinavian-inflected language of Panska, with which she coins her own aphorisms to explain her motives for the journey (“no return, no risk”). Tawada casts her merry band in relief against forces of oppression, such as transphobia (Akash, a sari- and makeup-wearing Indian man, is afraid to get off the boat for sightseeing in a Russian province) and the obnoxiousness of cultural chauvinism (Akash challenges an English passenger who drones on about the supremacy of his nation’s literature). Rather than a simplistic story of resilience, though, this shows in its moving conclusion how Hiruko and her friends find a way forward through dialogue and storytelling. It’s a marvel. (Sept.)