Unable to cope with the pain, she committed suicide in 1986: Who is Izumi Suzuki?

Izumi Suzuki (1949–1986) worked in many different sectors during her short life. Some of these include working as a drill operator, bar hostess, nude model for Nobuyoshi Araki, a sensational photographer, star of a "pink movie", a Japanese erotic film genre, and theater actor. But most of all, Suzuki is a writer; a science fiction writer.

Suzuki's first short story, The Witch's Apprentice, was published in the famous Japanese science fiction magazine S-F Magazine in 1975. This issue of the magazine is dedicated to women writers and includes works by well-known Western writers such as Pamela Sargent, Ursula K Le Guin, and Marion Zimmer Bradley. In addition to them, Suzuki and Japanese novelist Yūko Yamao are also introduced to Japanese readers. After this first step, Suzuki continues to publish impressive short stories in science fiction magazines and create her own modest oeuvre. Finally, some of Suzuki's works will be translated into English in 2021. The selection titled Terminal Boredom, consisting of seven stories that serve as a fascinating journey ticket to the author's subconscious, is translated into English by Polly Barton, Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph, Aiko Masubuchi, and Helen O'Horan and published by Verso publications and presented to the whole world.

Izumi Suzuki (July 10, 1949 – February 17, 1986) was a Japanese writer and actress, known for her science fiction stories and essays on Japanese pop culture. Married to avant-garde saxophonist Kaoru Abe until his death from overdose, she is also known for her association with photographer Nobuyoshi Araki.

Suzuki, who had a deep awareness of the dynamics and problems of the period she lived in, was interested in the student protests of the 1960s, the women's movement in the 70s - known as "ūman ribu" or "Woman's Lib" in Japan - and the rising consumerism in the 80s. pays close attention. In her stories where nihilism and existential nausea are felt to the core, she never hesitates to use sharp criticism arrows when dealing with subjects that make her uneasy. At the same time, she does not refrain from making references to pop culture while depicting the worlds of the future in her stories. For example; In the story That Old Seaside Club, she has the Velvet Underground's Heroin played in a bar on a distant planet. Or, in the Forgotten story, she delights an alien because she is the reincarnation of her Terran lover, Brigitte Bardot.

In short, although her stories cover topics such as intergalactic conflicts, hibernation practices used to prevent overpopulation, or taking refuge in virtual realities to combat existential crises, one leg of her stories is always tied to the past and the reality of our world.

One of the interesting things about Suzuki's texts is that although she approaches the women's movement from her own cultural environment, the stories have a very universal, forward-thinking, and innovative perspective. In this context, Suzuki is not content with just using unconventional female characters when dealing with the gender issue; She also approaches the issue of fluid identities from a different perspective. In addition, in the male-dominated world of science fiction literature, Suzuki is among the first writers to present a different image of women, away from the sexist clichés abundant in the works of male writers.

In Suzuki's stories, almost all of which are based on introspection and told in the first person, we always look at the world through the eyes of female characters. There is only one story in Terminal Boredom that adopts a third-person perspective; Night Picnic. In this story, the main character is not a woman, but a young man, and more importantly, she is not a human. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that Suzuki suddenly changes her classic narrative in Night Picnic.

Her story, Women and Women, which was first published in SF Magazine in 1977, is one of Suzuki's stories in which she focuses on gender roles. In the story set in the near future, a lesbian matriarchal society is depicted, and in this society, men are imprisoned in a ghetto (Gender Exclusion Terminal Occupancy Zone - GETO) and sentenced to damnatio memoriae, a punishment dating back to the Roman Empire; In other words, the cultural heritage describing men and masculinity will be completely removed from the historical narrative and destroyed. But gender roles are still valid and just as harmful as before. The more "masculine" couple goes to work, while the more "feminine" one takes care of the house. Suzuki says the following regarding this issue:

“Here women live with women. The strange thing is that one day, one of these women will emulate what they were told in the past and called "masculinity"; “It turns into her in the end.”

An unusual sense of hopelessness permeates Suzuki's stories. On the one hand, there are young people who have turned into completely indifferent and emotionless individuals while trying to fulfill the requirements of the capitalist world, and on the other hand, there are fossilized cultural traditions, and Suzuki actually tries to patch up these fragmented relationships by using technology in her stories.

However, despite her efforts in fictional worlds, she could not cope with the pain in her own world and committed suicide in 1986.