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Terminal Boredom
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2021 by Thrillist, The Millions, Frieze, and Metropolis Japan The first English language publication of the work of Izumi Suzuki, a legend of Japanese science fiction and a countercultural icon At turns nonchalantly hip and charmingly deranged, Suzuki's singular slant on speculative fiction would be echoed in countless later works, from Margaret Atwood and Harumi Murakami, to Black Mirror and Ex Machina. In these darkly playful and punky stories, the fantastical elements are always earthed by the universal pettiness of strife between the sexes, and the gritty reality of life on the lower rungs, whatever planet that ladder might be on. Translated by Polly Barton, Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph, Aiko Masubuchi, and Helen O'Horan.
Terminal Boredom
On a planet where men are contained in ghettoised isolation, women enjoy the fruits of a queer matriarchal utopia -- until a boy escapes and a young woman's perception of the world is violently interupted. Two old friends enjoy cocktails on a holiday resort planet where all is not as it seems. A bickering couple emigrate to a world that has worked out an innovative way to side-step the need for war, only to bring their quarrels (and something far more destructive) with them. And in the title story, Suzuki offers readers a tragic and warped mirroring of her own final days as the tyranny of enforced screen-time and the mechanistion of labour bring about a shattering psychic collapse. At turns nonchalantly hip and charmingly deranged, Suzuki's singular slant on speculative fiction would be echoed in countless later works, from Margaret Atwood and Harumi Murakami, to Black Mirror and Ex Machina. In these darkly playful and punky stories, the fantastical elements are always earthed by the universal pettiness of strife between the sexes, and the gritty reality of life on the lower rungs, whatever planet that ladder might be on.
Set My Heart on Fire
The first novel from Izumi Suzuki to be published in English: a candid, intimate exploration of passion, music and transgression Hope I’m in for a good time, I thought. Even if it’s just for tonight. Set in the underground bar and club scene of 1970s Tokyo, Set My Heart On Fire tells the story of Izumi in her turbulent twenties. Through a series of disarmingly frank vignettes, author Izumi Suzuki presents an unforgettable portrait of a young woman encountering missteps and miscommunication, good music and unreliable men, powerful drugs and disorientating meds. Izumi usually keeps her relationships short but complicated, until she meets Jun. Set My Heart on Fire is a visceral novel about mistaken relationships and the convolutions of desire, about regret and acceptance. Pulsing through the narration is the protagonist’s love of music, a vital soundtrack spanning the Zombies, T. Rex and the Rolling Stones as well as underground Japanese psychedelic-rock bands such as the Tigers and the Tempters.
Hit Parade of Tears
A new collection of stories from the cult author of Terminal Boredom Izumi Suzuki had ideas about doing things differently, ideas that paid little attention to the laws of physics, or the laws of the land. In this new collection, her skewed imagination distorts and enhances some of the classic concepts of science fiction and fantasy. A philandering husband receives a bestial punishment from a wife with her own secrets to keep; a music lover finds herself in a timeline both familiar and as wrong as can be; a misfit band of space pirates discover a mysterious baby among the stars; Emma, the Bovary-like character from one of Suzuki's stories in Terminal Boredom, lands herself in a bizarre romantic pickle. Wryly anarchic and deeply imaginative, Suzuki was a writer like no other. These eleven stories offer readers the opportunity to delve deeper in this singular writer's work.
Touring the Land of the Dead
PICKED BY THE GUARDIAN AS 'FICTION TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2021' A dream-like, emotionally charged narrative by a bold new voice in Japanese fiction A mesmerizing combination of two tales about memory, loss and love, both told with stylistic inventiveness and breath-taking sensitivity. Taichi was forced to stop working almost a decade ago and since then he and his wife Natsuko have been getting by on her part-time wages. But Natsuko is a woman accustomed to hardship. When her own family's fortune dried up years during her childhood, she, her brother, and her mother lived a surreal hand-to-mouth existence shaped by her mother's refusal to accept their new station in life. One day, Natsuko sees an ...
Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You are So Old and Wise
_______________ A pocket-sized, unmissable essay on the importance of children's literature by the bestselling and award-winning author, Katherine Rundell. _______________ 'It's a very short book but it packs a real punch... A real delight' - Financial Times 'Rundell is the real deal, a writer of boundless gifts and extraordinary imaginative power whose novels will be read, cherished and reread long after most so-called "serious" novels are forgotten' - Observer 'Rundell's pen is gold-tipped' - Sunday Times _______________ Katherine Rundell - Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and prize-winning author of five novels for children - explores how children's books ignite, and can re-ignite, the imagination; how children's fiction, with its unabashed emotion and playfulness, can awaken old hungers and create new perspectives on the world. This delightful and persuasive essay is for adult readers.
Gargoyles
Six weeks after her fortieth birthday, Harriet is struck by a rare and lifethreatening illness. What follows is a long, painful and arduous stay at Charing Cross Hospital. From the first day in Critical Care, whenever Harriet tries to sleep, the backs of her eyes come alive with soul-sucking gargoyles; she remains awake for the entire six weeks. Such wakefulness produces its own hallucinations: the gargoyles become metaphors for lurking demons, fear of death, her relationship with her late father, and her dream of having a family. A stunning blend of poetic memoir and essays, Gargoyles explores the effects of illness, grief, love, and loss, but is also about the power of memory, which both haunts and enriches. It asks us to celebrate that which is in front of us, not taking our lives and health for granted. Sometimes, this means we have to learn to live with the gargoyles.
Gendered Power
Gendered Power sheds light on the sources of power for three prominent women of the Meiji period: Meiji Empress Haruko; public speaker, poet, and diarist Nakajima Shoen; and educator and prolific author Shimoda Utako. By focusing on the role Chinese classics (kanbun) played in the language employed by elite women, the chapters focus on how Empress Haruko, Shoen, and Shimoda Utako contributed new expectations for how women should participate in a modernizing Japan. By being in the public eye, all three women countered criticism of and commentary on their writings and activities, which they parried by navigating gender constraints. The success or failure as women ascribed to these three figure...
O Caledonia
"Originally published in Great Britain in 1991 by Hamish Hamilton Ltd."--Title page verso.
You Will Be Safe Here
Shortlisted for the Saltire Society Literary Awards Named One of the Best Books of the Year by NPR An extraordinary debut that explores legacies of abuse, redemption, and the strength of the human spirit--from the Boer Wars in South Africa to brutal wilderness camps for teenage boys. South Africa, 1901. It is the height of the second Boer War. Sarah van der Watt and her six-year-old son Fred are forced from their home on Mulberry Farm. As the polite invaders welcome them to Bloemfontein Concentration Camp they promise Sarah and Fred that they will be safe there. 2014. Sixteen-year-old Willem is an outsider. Hoping he will become the man she wants him to be, his Ma and her boyfriend force Willem to attend the New Dawn Safari Training Camp where they are proud to make men out of boys. They promise that he will be safe there. You Will Be Safe Here is a powerful and urgent novel of two connected South African stories. Inspired by real events, it uncovers a hidden colonial history, reveals a dark contemporary secret, and explores the legacy of violence and our will to survive.
