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Life Ceremony
Sayaka Murata, Ginny Tapley Takemori (translation)With Life Ceremony, the incomparable Sayaka Murata is back with her first collection of short stories ever to be translated into English. In Japan, Murata is particularly admired for her short stories, which are sometimes sweet, sometimes shocking, & always imbued with an otherworldly imagination & uncanniness.
In these twelve stories, Murata mixes an unusual cocktail of humor & horror to portray both the loners & outcasts as well as turning the norms & traditions of society on their head to better question them. Whether the stories take place in modern-day Japan, the future, or an alternate reality is left to the reader’s interpretation, as the characters often seem strange in their normality in a frighteningly abnormal world.
In “A First-Rate Material”, Nana & Naoki are happily engaged, but Naoki can’t stand the conventional use of deceased people’s bodies for clothing, accessories, & furniture, & a disagreement around this threatens to derail their perfect wedding day. “Lovers on the Breeze” is told from the perspective of a curtain in a child’s bedroom that jealously watches the young girl Naoko as she has her first kiss with a boy from her class and does its best to stop her. “Eating the City” explores the strange norms around food & foraging, while “Hatchling” closes the collection with an extraordinary depiction of the fractured personality of someone who tries too hard to fit in.
In these strange & wonderful stories of family & friendship, sex & intimacy, belonging & individuality, Murata asks above all what it means to be a human in our world & offers answers that surprise & linger.
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Sayaka Murata is the Japanese author of Earthlings & Convenience Store Woman, winner of the Akutagawa Prize. Murata has been named a Freeman’s “Future of New Writing” author & a Vogue Japan Woman of the Year. Her story, ‘A Clean Marriage’, was featured in Granta 127 Japan.
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