From a matriarchal utopia, where the impossible sight of a boy forces its heroine to question her doctrines, to screen-obsessed teenagers, whose solace is turning their apathy into violence, and the last family in a desolate city trying to stay human, or rather become it: Voices “unstuck from time” invite into a dystopian, gender-defying world that seems far away in its futuristic settings, yet scarily close to our 21st-century society. 

“Terminal Boredom”, an anthology of seven short stories by Japanese science-fiction authorette and countercultural force Izumi Suzuki, is the first English translation of her work to date. Through considered narratives laced with punk attitudes, Suzuki offers a nearly clairvoyant take on technology-induced emotional alienation and societal despair.

Despite her ground-breaking genius, Suzuki remained an outsider to the boys-only literary sci-fi scene throughout her career. Born in 1949 Japan, she dedicated herself to writing after arriving in rock’n’roll-ridden Tokyo. Affiliating with contemporaries such as erotic photographer Nobuyashi Araki allowed for self-expression beyond the constraining bounds of male perception. Suzuki’s most prolific period followed divorcee Kaoru Abe’s death in 1977, which is when the short fiction selected for “Terminal Boredom” got put to paper; the title story she finished shortly before taking her own life in 1986 at the age of 36.

With cool confidence, Suzuki drops lines of great wisdom (“Complete trust is a delusion.”) into the conversations and monologues of her complex characters, ranging from emotionless delinquents to green-skinned alien “blends”. “Like most people these days, I don’t overthink things. No firm beliefs, no hang-ups. Just a lack of self-confidence tangled up in fatalistic resignation”, one of her nameless protagonists lays herself bare within a few sentences. 

Unmercifully, Izumi Suzuki chronicles the faces of a fouling society by shattering gender constructs and revealing our “terran vices” as signs of collective loneliness. With this selection, Suzuki holds up a time-transcending mirror to society that begs to be looked at - no matter if the reflection is alien or familiar.