The broad theme of “fitting in” will certainly resonate with anyone who has ever felt the outsider it will also call to mind the old and oft-repeated Japanese saw about the nail that sticks out getting hammered down. How Murata’s protagonist, Furukura Keiko, handles her “inner nail” is one of the enjoyable surprises of this short novel. Ginny Tapley Takemori’s recent translation (Grove Press, 2018) is eminently readable, capturing well the rhythms of Murata’s prose and the relatively flat tone of the narrative voice, a tone, I might add, that is perfect for the story it relates. Convenience Store Woman, the sparse tale of a square peg in a world of round holes, is surprisingly poignant. This was thirteen years after her debut as a novelist, by which time she had already established herself as the successful author of numerous novels, several of which had won prestigious literary awards. 1979) won the Akutagawa Prize, usually the imprimatur of potential for a new writer. When Convenience Store Woman came out in 2016, Murata Sayaka (b.
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