And with a kitchen sink in the corner of even her wildest stories, Suzuki reminds us that while society may be limitless, relationships remain impossible Concerns about society, gender and imperialism dovetail irresistibly with flights of speculative wonder. Suzuki's singular slant on science fiction remains fresh and essential. The fissures in a queer matriarchal utopia are exposed when a boy - a creature usually contained in ghettoised isolation - appears beneath young Yūko's window an extreme government initiative curbing overpopulation prompts a woman to re-evaluate her friendships the last family in a desolate city learns to be human through the awkward appropriation of popular culture passive-aggressive furniture provides unwelcome romantic advice tense interplanetary politics distort Emma's love life Jane's ex-girlfriend reppears, radically altered and insistent on a catch-up Tokyo's teenagers, disaffected and numb from excessive screentime, find distraction in violence.
Terminal Boredom is important not only because of its historical significance as a wonderful exception in a genre dominated by men, but above all because Suzuki’s stories are still incredibly moving and relatable.Seven punky and pitch-black stories offer English-language readers an overdue introduction to Izumi Suzuki, a cult figure in Japanese literature. Suzuki’s stories offer an intimate exploration of anxiety, sadness, and resignation. The sci-fi elements here appear unexpectedly, without explanation, in an extremely casual way, andmostly just as a backdrop to stories about humans (and aliens) who struggle with the same problems as we do nowadays. Since the texts are available in English only so late, it is necessary to pay attention to the context: the future that Suzuki describes may seem a bit strange to us, but she was able to predict some socio-cultural phenomena uncannily well. Suzuki writes about a utopian matriarchal world in which few men live in closed institutions about love between a woman and a man from other planets, which develops against the backdrop of intergalactic conflict about a world where overpopulation is solved by removing selected people from the real world to the world of dreams and, in the titular story, about young people who are so addicted to screens that they can’t imagine life without them… Suzuki was an intriguing character: an actress and model – the book cover is by Nobuyoshi Araki, who often photographed her – but also a pioneer of science fiction genre in Japan. Written in 1970s and 1980s by Izumi Suzuki – the last one was written just before she committed suicide at the age of 36.
Terminal Boredom is a unique book: the iconic collection of seven science fiction stories is finally available for English-speaking readers.
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