The Walker

by Izumi Suzuki, Daniel Joseph (Translator)

‘The world will cease to spin, I suppose. The sun, in its death mask, will burn away the last traces of life clinging to the surface – the lichens, insects, even the bacteria.’

A newly translated story from the late Japanese writer Izumi Suzuki, available to read online at Granta's website. Also included in the story collection, Hit Parade of Tears .

Genres: Short Stories, Japanese Literature

1 pages, Unknown Binding

Published April 21, 2021

About the author

Izumi Suzuki was born in 1949. After dropping out of high school she worked in a factory before finding success and infamy as a model and actress. Her acting credits include both pink films and classics of 1970s Japanese cinema. When the father of her children, the jazz musician Kaoru Abe, died of an overdose, Suzuki’s creative output went into hyperdrive and she began producing the irreverent and punky short fiction, novels and essays that ensured her reputation would outstrip and outlast that of the men she had been associated with in her early career. She took her own life in 1986, leaving behind a decade’s worth of groundbreaking and influential writing.

Reviews

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

Test available online at https://granta.com/the-walker/

Izumi Suzuki was 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 collection Terminal Boredom: Stories appeared in English with stories translated by Polly Barton ( whose name I recognised from several other translation of modern Japanese writers), Sam Bett, David Boyd (who has written about translating her work https://hopscotchtranslation.com/2021... ), Aiko Masubuchi, Helen O’Horan and Daniel Joseph who 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 put Terminal Boredom: Stories on my To Be Read List

[Claudia]

And the Walker, the last woman standing, will she continue her great wandering circle through the sun’s mad tantrum?

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

strangely relatable

[Matt Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s a strange completeness and even familiarity to this more than a little off-kilter story about paying for a meal.

[millie]

is this the OG and then everybody clapped? lol besides that, what a funky little story

[julita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Available to read here.

How lovely!