![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Tosca and Barbara, in particular, are able to communicate through a shared dream and eye-contact- a relationship completely opposite from that of the polar bear and her audiences. Nonetheless, each bear has a close and mutually-beneficial relationship with one or more humans, and it’s in these exchanges that Memoirs is at its most poignant. While the grandmother polar bear writes a bestselling autobiography and mingles freely with humans, Tosca has somewhat less freedom as a circus performer, and Knut never knows the world outside of the zoo in which he is raised. Each bear has a different relationship to the human community, even as they all perform, at different points in their lives, for human entertainment. And then there is Tosca’s human friend/teacher Barbara’s perspective, as well, through which we learn about the world of the circus in a divided Germany. In Memoirs of a Polar Bear, Tawada doesn’t just inhabit the mind of a polar bear to explore such issues as Cold War politics, ancestry, inheritance, entertainment, and consciousness no, she gives us the thoughts and aspirations of three different polar bears: the grandmother matriarch, her daughter Tosca, and Tosca’s son Knut. Inaugural Winner of the Warwick Prize for Women In Translation, 2017 ![]()
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