Set My Heart on Fire portrays women navigating unstable relationships and emotional isolation in postwar Japan. Through stark, fragmented narratives, it depicts desire as obsessive and damaging, shaped by gendered expectations, power imbalances, and profound loneliness. The book offers an unflinching view of intimacy, vulnerability, and emotional survival in a deeply alienating urban landscape.

Izumi Suzuki (1949–1986) was a Japanese writer and actress closely associated with the countercultural and avant‑garde scenes of 1970s Tokyo. Her fiction is marked by a raw, ironic voice and a sustained preoccupation with gender, desire, alienation, and emotional extremity. She wrote across genres, from science fiction to autobiographical prose, often blurring the line between the two. Her major works include Terminal Boredom, Hit Parade of Tears, and the novel Set My Heart on Fire.

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Book available from Bookshop.org, Amazon and Waterstones (translated by Helen O'Horan)
Japanese version available here