Description

Due to rights issues, the audio of this interview is not available online. Please contact San Diego State University, Special Collections and Archives if you wish to be granted access to the original audio. Larry McCaffery, Sinda Gregory, Mari Kotani and Takayuki Tatsumi interview Mariko Ohara in a restaurant in Japan with Tatsumi providing translation. Ohara explains her start in writing fiction, including Kirk/Spock fiction and science fiction. Ohara explains she writes a “wide-screen baroque”, a mixture of metaphysical discourse with space opera. There is a discussion of the use of the term “gay fiction” for Ohara’s early writings. Ohara discusses her interest in vampires in her fiction. Ohara answers questions about her ambivalence towards women in her work. Ohara discusses the background of her story “Mental Female”. There is a discussion of the question of western notions of feminism in Ohara’s work. An edited version of this interview was published as “The Twister of Imagination: An Interview with Mariko Ohara” on pages 128-133 of Review of Contemporary Fiction Vol. 22 (2), Summer 2002.