Hit Parade of Tears

I really liked the first collection of Izumi Suzuki's short stories that came out in English a couple of years ago (Terminal Boredom). Hit Parade of Tears, the second collection, is just as good.

Suzuki, who died in 1986 at the age of just 37, was a pioneer of Japanese “punky” science fiction. Most of these stories are simultaneously quite sad and very funny, and despite being steeped in Seventies Japanese counterculture, somehow still feel very fresh today.