An interview with Daniel Joseph.
Lex Berman interviews Daniel Joseph about Terminal Boredom the first anthology of Izumi Suzuki’s science fiction to appear in English.
The author, Izumi Suzuki, who committed suicide in 1986, had developed a career as a writer, using science fiction to project her own experience in fantastic landscapes and situations. Our conversation ranges from the quasi-utopian Women and Women where men, as inferior beings, are sequestered into the GETO, to The Old Seaside Club, where a surreal, slow-motion bar fight ends in meta-textual awareness.
Is it nihilism? Is it true love? Is it an altered consciousness critique of the mundane world? Yeah.
Recorded with Zencastr from Cambridge, MA and Brooklyn, NY on 21st May, 2021.
Opening music clip: The Golden Cups src This Bad Girl
Ending music clip: The Mops src No Umbrella
References:
Cope, Julian Jap Rock Sampler src (2007)
Joseph, Daniel How Izumi Suzuki Broke Science Fiction’s Boys’ Club src ArtReview (2021-04-07)
Kavan, Anna The Curious Creation of Anna Kavan src New Yorker (2020-03)
Kotani, Mari Alien Spaces and Alien Bodies in Japanese Women’s Science Fiction src in Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams Univ Minn (2007)
Machida, Kō 町田 康 On Punk and Samurais src interview (2014)
Robson, Leo Space, Body, and Aliens in Japanese Women’s Science Fiction Translated by Miri Nakamura src Science Fiction Studies (2002-11)
O’Sullivan, Shane Children of the Revolution documentary src (2002)
O’Sullivan, Shane Under the Skin documentary src (2002)
Ridker, Andrew A Writer From the Future: Who Was Sci Fi Iconoclast Izumi Suzuki? src LitHub (2021-05-07)
Wakamatsu, Koji United Red Army src
Yokoo, Tadanori 横尾 忠則 src short biography