The Adventures Of Sumiyakist Q
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
What happens when satire and surrealism collide in the shadow of totalitarianism? The Adventures of Sumiyakist Q is a darkly comic and fiercely subversive novel set in a dystopian Japan, following the absurdist journey of its enigmatic protagonist, Q, through a nightmarish society ruled by the oppressive doctrine of Sumiyakism — a thinly veiled parody of ideological conformity and political fanaticism. Part picaresque adventure, part biting political allegory, the narrative hurtles through a landscape of grotesque bureaucracy, revolutionary fervor, and moral chaos, skewering the pretensions of both the left and the right with razor-sharp wit. Yumiko Kurahashi was one of Japan's most iconoclastic literary voices of the twentieth century, and this novel — masterfully rendered into English by Dennis Keene as part of the prestigious Asian & Pacific Writing series — stands as a bold testament to her singular talent for wielding black comedy as a weapon of intellectual dissent. Deeply indebted to the traditions of European absurdism while remaining distinctly Japanese in its cultural critique, the work challenges readers to confront the seductive dangers of ideological certainty. For those who dare to follow Q on his increasingly unhinged odyssey, the question is not whether the system is mad — but whether sanity itself was ever an option.
Author: Yumiko Kurahashi
Format: Paperback
Published: 1979, University of Queensland Press
Genre: Modern fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
What happens when satire and surrealism collide in the shadow of totalitarianism? The Adventures of Sumiyakist Q is a darkly comic and fiercely subversive novel set in a dystopian Japan, following the absurdist journey of its enigmatic protagonist, Q, through a nightmarish society ruled by the oppressive doctrine of Sumiyakism — a thinly veiled parody of ideological conformity and political fanaticism. Part picaresque adventure, part biting political allegory, the narrative hurtles through a landscape of grotesque bureaucracy, revolutionary fervor, and moral chaos, skewering the pretensions of both the left and the right with razor-sharp wit. Yumiko Kurahashi was one of Japan's most iconoclastic literary voices of the twentieth century, and this novel — masterfully rendered into English by Dennis Keene as part of the prestigious Asian & Pacific Writing series — stands as a bold testament to her singular talent for wielding black comedy as a weapon of intellectual dissent. Deeply indebted to the traditions of European absurdism while remaining distinctly Japanese in its cultural critique, the work challenges readers to confront the seductive dangers of ideological certainty. For those who dare to follow Q on his increasingly unhinged odyssey, the question is not whether the system is mad — but whether sanity itself was ever an option.