Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada

"I was nonetheless convinced that our Earth is enormous - otherwise the sky wouldn't be so large"

Memoirs of a Polar Bear has a completely unique premise. I really can't think of another novel written from the multi-generational perspective of a family of polar bears. But what's even more unique is the way Yoko Tawada uses this premise to create an allegory about life in Russia and later in East Germany during the Cold War.

Yoko Tawada is a Japanese author living in Berlin and writing in both Japanese and German.  The English translation is by Susan Bernofsky who manages not only the translation but the tricky job of making English readers believe the anthropomorphism with great success. 

The novel is split into three sections beginning in Russia with a polar bear who has spent a life working as a performer in a zoo. She reflects upon on her life on stage and upon the changing role of the circus in Russia during her lifetime. The pay off for accepting that a polar bear would pick up a pen and write her memoirs is that you get to experience the World from a wonderfully non human perspective  Part two concerns her daughter Tosca who is training as a performer at a Berlin zoo and part three picks up the story of her son Knut in Canada who finds the memoir of his grandmother from her time in Russia.

At times the novel reminded me of The Life in Pi; the way the bears speak with humans, to the extent that you actually forget they aren't human, was similar to Yann Martell's style. At other times I though of Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder in the way that Tawada manages to write convincingly about vast topics, like socialism in the GDR, through the eyes of a unlikely narrator.

Memoirs of a Polar Bear is a great story so long as you are willing to accept the allegory and take the leap of faith required to go on this journey with Yoko Tawada. My advice, go with it. You'll be very glad you did. 

I read this novel at home in Oxfordshire

Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada published by Portobello Books, 256 pages.     

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