By Yasutaka Tsutsui
First Published: 1993
Rating: Classic.
At Tokyo’s Institute for Psychiatric Research, beautiful, 29-year-old psychiatrist Atsuko Chiba is effecting rapid cures of schizophrenia. Using devices developed by colleague Kosaku Tokita, a grotesquely obese and child-like genius, Atsuko enters patients’ dreams and participates in them, and she and Tokita have been short-listed for the Nobel Prize. But for reasons of professional jealousy, hubris, and twisted sexual desire, a doctor and a top administrator at the institute steal the devices and begin to “infect” staff members with schizophrenia. Only Atsuko can oppose them, and she must do that in both the real world and the nightmarish dreams of the victims. Tsutsui is one of Japan’s leading science-fiction authors, and Paprika, published in Japan in 1993, was also made into an animated film. Some U.S. readers may have difficulty accepting some of the book’s premises; for instance, that schizophrenia could be sent into “remission” in a day or two. Others might question the nature of relationships between men and women that Paprika posits. But those who suspend disbelief will be entertained and likely made deeply curious about Japanese culture and society.