Brilliant, insightful, enigmatic, surreal short stories. Tawada is simply one of the most interesting authors writing today. '3 Streets' is a quick read, if you want, but more enjoyable when reading each story on separate days -- giving you time to digest each story more fully. But I was left wanting more. The three stories were first published in 百年の散歩; and there are many more stories there. While I recognize the Storybook series is designed for short format, I would have preferred having all the stories available; I will have to wait. ( )

Ghosts in the Streets of Berlin
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)

3 Streets consists of three short stories selected from Tawada's original Japanese book. It is possible that the selection was made by choosing those stories which had encounters with ghosts. 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) [read in Estonian as Kahtlased kujud öises rongis (Suspicious Characters on a Night Train) (2020) as an English translation does not yet exist]. 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 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. 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 read 3 Streets through its inclusion in the 2022 Year of Reading subscription from the English language bookstore Shakespeare and Company in Paris, France.

* New Directions gave the original title as "A Century of Walks" but when I was reverse engineering in Google Translate in order to find the original Japanese edition I had to use "One Hundred Years of Walks" in order to find the correct book.

Trivia and Link
3 Streets is part of publisher New Directions Storybook ND series which is:

Created and curated by the writer and translator Gini Alhadeff, Storybook ND—our new series of slim hardcover fiction books—aims to deliver the pleasure one felt as a child reading a marvelous book from cover to cover in an afternoon. The series, beautifully designed by Peter Mendelsund, will feature original works by beloved New Directions authors, and will also introduce new writers to the list. As Alhadeff notes, “There’s nothing sweeter than to fall, for a few hours, between the covers of a perfect little book! And the image on the front, by a contemporary artist such as Francesco Clemente or Kiki Smith, will draw you in. Longer stories or shorter novels with a beautiful face: that’s Storybook ND.”

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