Welcome to the not-too-distant future as envisioned by the remarkable Yoko Tawada. Japan, having vanished into the sea, is now remembered as "the land of sushi." Hiruko, a former citizen of the land of sushi and a climate refugee herself, has a job teaching immigrant children in the Danish city of Odense with her invented language Panska (Pan-Scandinavian): "homemade language. no country to stay in. three countries I experienced. no time to learn three different languages. might mix up. insufficient space in brain. so made new language. homemade language most Scandinavian people understand.Hiruko soon makes new friends to join her in her travels as she searches for anyone who can still speak Japanese: Knute, a graduate student in linguistics, who is fascinated by her Panska; Akash, an Indian man who lives as a woman, wearing a red sari; Nanook, an Eskimo from Greenland, first mistaken as another refugee from the land of sushi; and Nora, who works at the Karl Marx House in Trier. All th
