Bearwoman - An Anthropologist Living Between Worlds in Siberia

Authored by Nastassja Martin and translated by Yu Takano, this is "Becoming a Bear - An Anthropologist Living Between Worlds in Siberia" (2025).

This is a non-fiction book that traces the transformation and regeneration of an anthropologist who survived a bear attack that mauled her face.

A 29-year-old French female anthropologist, researching indigenous peoples in Kamchatka, is severely injured when attacked by a bear in the mountains one day. From that day on, the boundaries between Western and Siberian worldviews, and between the human and animal worlds, collapse... Accused of being a spy, she is interrogated by Russian intelligence, suffers through repeated surgeries and flashbacks of the incident, yet heals her body and mind, and returns to the forests at the foot of a Kamchatka volcano to consider the meaning of her encounter with the bear as an anthropologist.

"The bear didn't want to kill you. It wanted to mark you.
Now you are a Mietka, one who lives between two worlds." (From the book)

*Mietka: In the language of the Even, an indigenous people of Siberia, it means "one marked by a bear" or one who encountered a bear and survived. A Mietka is believed to be half-human and half-bear.

"Bear." Wooden bears are traded as if in a fever, bears with nowhere to go run rampant, and "bear" even became the character of the year in 2025. This book is published at a remarkably timely moment. What will those who pick it up think? (Ammel)