Abstract

This novel bears comparison to other masterpieces of dystopian fiction depicting a world where reproduction is controlled by the state, such as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. It was first published in 2018, before the Covid-19 pandemic.

It is 2093 and Japan is a client state of its powerful neighbor China, and suffering the effects of climate change. The country is reeling from a pandemic that killed around 90% of women of childbearing age, and the population has just voted in favor of conscripting all men between the ages of 18 and 30 into undergoing a sex-change operation to serve as a woman for two years in order to increase the birth rate. After a training period, conscripts are released to live in society where they are encouraged to find a partner and form a kind of temporary marriage contract for the duration of the draft. Subsequently they can choose to remain as a woman or return to being a man, and if they have a baby they can either have it adopted by the state or raise it themselves.

Five linked stories follow the fates of five conscripts ranging from a farmer from the poverty-stricken rural north who is attracted by the money and the chance for some excitement in life; an ambitious bureaucrat who becomes suicidal when rumors of her promiscuity spread; a school teacher who is sent to a harsh remote area as punishment for assisting an escape attempt and ends up being forced into prostitution; a happily married man from the south who repulses his wife when he embraces being a woman; and a beautiful recluse who helps to found the Sumida Riverland women’s refuge and theme park that becomes a symbol of healing and reconciliation for the nation following the trauma of the pandemic, ending the novel on a note of optimism.

Author’s Information

TANAKA Choko was born in Toyama in 1964 and worked as an office assistant for eight years before becoming a full-time housewife. In 2011 she won the R-18 Award for Literature By Women For Women, open only to authors who identify as a woman, with Beshimi (a type of grotesque Noh mask), and made her debut with Amai okashi ha tabemasen (“I Don’t Eat Sweets”) from the same work. Other works include Gekidan 42 sai ♂ (The Age 42 ♂Theatre Company”), Watashi no koto nara hottoite (“Back Off!”), and Ato o tsugu hito (“The Successor”).Winner of the 2019 Sense of Gender Award (founded in 2001 as a “sister prize” of the Otherwise Award, formerly the James Triptree Jr. Award)