The Girl on the Motorcycle

Dare to go astray, forget certainties, let go, appreciate ambiguity, This is what Oji Suzuki invites you to when you enter his pages… Oji Suzuki was for years one of the pillars of the Garo magazine and one of the spearheads of "gekiga". A worthy successor to Yoshiharu Tsuge, Oji Suzuki excels in the description of a shady Japan, populated by often drifting artists heavily intoxicated, antisocials of all kinds and other people left behind by the system, in stories that read like poems and leave a great part of the interpretation to the reader. Alcoholic delirium and endless drinking therefore populate this collection composed of 9 stories which are as many portraits of marginal people who are sometimes endearing or enigmatic, like the young biker who gives its title to the present work, dreamy mangakas (including Suzuki himself?) and melancholic that we come across in several short stories, by Nobuko, who disappeared but not forgotten, or even Nagaguchi, so young and already an outcast… Heir to the Beat Generation and the protest ideals of the late 60s, Oji Suzuki produced a work as poetic as it is political, of which The Girl with a Motorcycle gives a representative overview. Published in French somewhat furtively in the middle of 2000s, we bet that The Girl with a Motorcycle will allow us to (re)discover the Oji Suzuki's unique and personal work to a wider audience…