This time, an adorable stuffed hedgehog adorned the cover. Her follow-up, Earthlings, startled many English-speaking readers. Murata was apparently baffled that so many English-speaking readers found the novel funny. At its heart, though, was a thorough-going critique of capitalism, sexism, and cultural norms that don’t always make sense. One critic described the novel as “brilliant, witty, and sweet in ways that recall Amélie and Shopgirl”. On the plate? An onigiri rice ball in the shape of a smiling girl next to a flower of pink ginger.īut Convenience Store Woman, perhaps because of the cutesy way it was marketed, was also widely misunderstood. The American edition was even cuter-on a pink napkin set against a soft blue background sat a little white plate. In the middle was a fish-shaped soy sauce container with a bright red cap. The story of an offbeat, thirty-something sales clerk at a “Smile Mart” helped spur a boom in English-language translations of Japanese literature, especially literature by women.īritish readers could purchase the book with a blue, yellow, or pink cover with the title in contrasting bold, white writing. Sayaka Murata’s English-language debut novel, Convenience Store Woman, caused a sensation when it appeared in a 2018 translation by Ginny Tapley Takemori.
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