Spontaneous Acts by German-Japanese writer Yoko Tawada follows a fierce and scrupulous search for connection and meaning in a noisy and overwhelming world emerging from the loneliness of COVID lockdowns.
The novel follows Patrik, a literary researcher, who alternates between identifying with his name and as “the patient” – a nameless psychiatric patient consumed by his constant agitation and loneliness.
As the world opens up from lockdown, he finds it difficult rejoining the world outside. He experiences crippling agoraphobia and extreme overwhelm when he ventures out into a newly reopened Berlin. He also agonises over whether to speak at a conference in Paris on the poet Paul Celan, with whose work he shares an intense and emotionally charged connection.
