![]() The novel’s matriarch polar bear also begins her book in a language other then German. ![]() Tawada wrote “Memoirs” in Japanese, then translated it into German on her own. ![]() “Memoirs” is actually three memoirs: the first narrated by Knut’s circus-performing Russian grandmother, the second by Knut’s mother and the final by Knut. “But by the time I knew him,” Tawada said, “it was later in his life, when people complained that he was less cute.” He became a celebrity, photographed by Annie Leibovitz for a cover of Vanity Fair, and lines to visit Knut formed daily for his scheduled appearances. The tale of the real-life Knut is at once moving and outlandish: His mother, Tosca, a retired performer from the German Democratic Republic circus, rejected Knut at birth, so he was raised instead by a male zookeeper “mother.” When an animal rights activist commented in a German newspaper that the zoo’s ethical responsibility was to let Knut die, children protested and the world fell in love with the poor animal. ![]() ![]() Tawada had brought me to the Berlin Zoo because she had visited its famous polar bear, Knut, regularly while working on her 2014 novel, “Memoirs of a Polar Bear,” which will be published in English in November. It was a gray and drizzly afternoon when Yoko Tawada and I crossed under a green-and-gold paifang to meet with mammals much larger than ourselves. ![]()
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