Description
Keiko has never really fitted in. At school and university people find her odd and her family worries she'll never be normal. To appease them, Keiko takes a job at a newly opened convenience store. Here, she finds peace and purpose in the simple, daily tasks and routine interactions. She is, she comes to understand, happiest as a convenience store worker. But in Keiko's social circle it just won't do for an unmarried woman to spend all her time stacking shelves and re-ordering green tea. As pressure mounts on Keiko to find either a new job, or worse, a husband, she is forced to take desperate action...
A best-seller in Japan, and the winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, Convenience Store Woman marks the English-language debut of a writer who has been hailed as the most exciting voice of her generation
Review
Having visited Japan I am working my way through books by Japanese authors. As soon as I read the words "Irasshaimase!" I was instantly transported back to Japan. This is the greeting that you hear on entering any store - it means "welcome to the store". For foreigners it is easy to want to shout it back, thinking it means hello.
Some of the things in the book may seem strange to you if you have never been to Japan. Such as the attentiveness of those working in convenience or Konbini stores and the fact that the staff bow to you. The book is only 176 pages long so I easily read it in a couple of hours. Don't be put off by the shortness of the book - this is no usual short story. The author has packed so much meaning and nuance into the words that it feels like you've read a full length novel.
The book is set around Keiko - she is what we might think of in the West as on the autistic spectrum. She has never married and to those in Japanese society she is "not normal". Keiko is happy to continue in this world of hers, existing only to serve in the convenience store she has worked in for 18 years. She has stock answers to probing personal questions so that people will leave her alone. Unfortunately the answers are beginning to fail - she needs to find another way for people to let her be. She is perfectly happy - but it seems they are not - why does she not conform!
Beautifully written and a little quirky this is a book that will stay with me.
I'm giving this book 5 out of 5 stars. My thanks to Netgalley and Granta Books for a copy of the book for review.
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