Anna Cima

I Wake Up in Shibuya

Trans. Iris Milde
Aufwachen in Shibuya Aufwachen in Shibuya
Aufwachen in Shibuya
Klak Verlag, 2019, 422 pp
9783948156121
Language: German
Goodreads rating
81.4% (Rated by 1962 users)
Literary fiction

Japanologist Anna Cima’s debut novel is a contender for Czech literary discovery of the year.

A teenager called Jana finds herself in the lively Tokyo district of Shibuya. Her slightly older alter ego is studying Japanese language and culture in Prague, attempting to translate and trying to get a scholarship in Japan. The life story of the author whose work Jana is translating with a friend – the forgotten prose writer Kawashita – works its way into the mind and fate of both versions of Jana. This prose debut by the young Japanologist, with its readable and refreshingly colloquial yet in no way trivial language, looks at ways of absorbing and understanding different cultures as well as the contradiction inherent in a dream come true and presents Japan and its culture in an erudite but far from dull way.

Information about the original Czech edition

Probudím se na Šibuji

Other selected published translations (4)

Tokióban ébredek Hungarian

Me despertaré en Shibuya Spanish

シブヤで目覚めて Japanese

Прачынаюся ў Сібуі Belarusian

Aufwachen in Shibuya
Klak Verlag, 2019, 422 pp
9783948156121
Language: German
Goodreads rating
81.4% (Rated by 1962 users)