#RivetingReviews: West Camel reviews THE SUN SCRIPT by Rein Raud, translated by Christopher Moseley

It is easy for authors interested in philosophy and linguistics to allow their fiction to slip into a slough of linguistic puzzles and philosophical ponderings (not always, but often while wandering a European city). Not so in this new novel from Rein Raud – who as well as being a fine Estonian novelist and poet, is also a senior academic with a focus on cultural theory and philosophy. The Sun Script manages to draw us deeply into its philosophical and linguistic investigations, while at the same time wearing them wonderfully lightly.

Set in the turbulent years after the 1917 Russian Revolution, the novel follows two principal characters: Lily, an Estonian strongwoman who tours the far reaches of the defunct Russian Empire only to find herself first in Shanghai and then Japan; and Tsuneo, son of an eminent family of Japanese priests who is travelling in the opposite direction, initially in search of the grave of his dead brother, and then in search of the author of a groundbreaking linguistic theory.

Through the chaos of the Russian Civil War, with everyone from peasant to aristocrat swapping between the White and Red sides as the moment dictates; through the nascent Estonian Republic and the short-lived Far Eastern Republic; with spies of every stripe found round each corner; and with a chaotic post-Imperial China and newly Westernised Japan looking on, Raud examines the central and competing political and philosophical ideas that drove this generalised upheaval.

Through Tsuneo’s quest to meet his hero Linzbach and combine his thinking with the Japanese Sun Script of the title to form a universal language that, in Tsuneo’s mind, will bring peace to the world, Raud explores key ideas about the universality and specificity of language.

And perhaps most importantly, and certainly most movingly, through the picaresque adventures of Lily, who moves from circus-troupe strongwoman to private bodyguard, to sumo wrestler, to enlightened quasi-priestess, Raud examines ways in which we can each find our place in the world, whether through intention or chance, or a combination of both. For Lili, like all the characters in this novel, is both mistress of her own destiny and subject to the winds of fate.

At the end of the book, as she contemplates her next move, Raud likens it to accepting an invitation to dance:

To be that dance herself – that dance which unites everything and everyone and which is beautiful in itself, just because every step we take in this dance can never be fully understood, an action performed with full responsibility or the realisation of inevitability …

The Sun Script is itself such a dance – and while the novel’s setting suggests this dance is of another time, it nevertheless feels immediate and intimate, while offering a strategy through which we can negotiate the world’s current upheavals.

Reviewed by West Camel

THE SUN SCRIPT

Written by Rein Raud

Translated from the Estonian by Christopher Moseley

Published by Norvik Press (2026)

March 2026 #RivetingReviews titles are available to buy from bookshop.org.

West Camel is a writer, reviewer and editor. He edited Dalkey Archive’s Best European Fiction 2015 and has written two novels, Attend and Fall. He is the editor of The Riveter magazine and helps edit the #RivetingReviews for the European Literature Network. He is currently taking a sabbatical from his role as editorial director at Orenda Books to write his third novel.

Read West Camel’s #RivetingReview of THE OLD FIRE by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins

Read West Camel’s #RivetingReview of THE CITY AND THE HOUSE by Natalia Ginzburg, translated by Dick Davis

Read West Camel’s #RivetingReview of HUNGRY FOR WHAT by María Bastarós

Read West Camel’s #RivetingReview of JOURNEYS AND FLOWERS by Mercè Rodoreda

Read West Camel’s #RivetingReview of FAMILY and BORGHESIA by Natalia Ginzburg

Read West Camel’s #RivetingReview of THE TIME OF CHERRIES by Montserrat Roig

Read West Camel’s #RivetingReview of VLADIVOSTOCK CIRCUS by Elisa Shua Dusapin

Read West Camel’s #RivetingReview of VALENTINO and SAGGITARIUS by Natalia Ginzburg

Read West Camel’s #RivetingReview of Mercè Rodoreda

Read West Camel’s #RivetingReview of ALL OUR YESTERDAYS by Natalia Ginzburg

Read West Camel’s #RivetingReview of WINTER IN SOKCHO and THE PACHINKO PARLOUR by Elisa Shua Dusapin

Read West Camel’s #RivetingReview of VOICES IN THE EVENING, FAMILY LEXICON, THE ROAD TO THE CITY, THE DRY HEART, THE LITTLE VIRTUES and HAPPINESS AS SUCH by Natalia Ginzburg