Short Story Review: The Walker by Izumi Suzuki, transl. by Daniel Joseph
on Sheila Ash (India), 25/Jan/2022 04:08, 34 days ago
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The WalkerbyIzumi SuzukiMy rating:3 of 5 starsTest available online athttps://granta.com/the-walker/Izumi Suzukiwas Japanese writer living between 1949 and 1986. The most informative account of her I found is from 2021 posting on Literary Hub (https://lithub.com/a-writer-from-the-...) from around the time her story collectionTerminal Boredom: Storiesappeared in English with stories translated byPolly Barton( whose name I recognised from several other translation of modern Japanese writers),Sam Bett,David Boyd(who has written about translating her workhttps://hopscotchtranslation.com/2021...),Aiko Masubuchi,Helen O’HoranandDaniel Josephwho is the translator of this story. That collection is all the has been translated thus far.According to Granta, Daniel Joseph holds a Master's from Harvard in medieval Japanese Literature and who according to his Amazon's page he specializes in both modern and classical literature, science fiction, pop culture, music, and the avant-garde, and if this story is anything to go by that list may qualify for the addition of the term 'weird' ,The Walker is a short 4 page story, set in some unknown time and place where a narrator seems to have been walking for ages and seems icompelled to continue to walk, except that she encounters a woman with food cart. ******SPOILER ALERT*** hungry and with no money she exchanges an item of jewellery for food. This seems a fantasy encounter, told quite realistically, but the final twist left so gobsmacked, my only though was 'How strangely weird!'I've putTerminal Boredom: Storieson my To Be Read List  Postscript: Daniel Joseph has also written about her on Art Review  in 2021 (https://artreview.com/how-izumi-suzuki-broke-science-fiction-boys-club )ashramblings