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Convenience Store Woman: A Novel
Convenience Store Woman: A Novel
Convenience Store Woman: A Novel
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Convenience Store Woman: A Novel

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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  • Murata has been a huge runaway bestseller in Japan, one of the highest selling literary novels of recent years, selling 660,000 hardcovers to date. Convenience Store Woman won Japan’s most prestigious literary prize, the Akutagawa Prize. Rights have been sold in nine territories so far; Grove conducted a four-way auction for UK & Commonwealth rights, selling to Granta Books, the UK publisher of The Vegetarian, which is a good comp title. There is already a lot of buzz behind this book and author.

  • Reminiscent of the work of Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto, Convenience Store Woman follows a young woman who adores her dead-end job at a convenience store in Tokyo and doesn’t understand the concern of her friends and relatives who want her to settle down. Convenience Store Woman is both wry social novel and sensitive portrait, a heartfelt and brilliantly written novel.

  • We hope to follow the trajectory of an author like Han Kang and think that this book has the potential to win a big readership as well as the literary clout to be awarded major international prizes.

  • Murata has a building international profile and was recently selected as one of Freeman’s “The Future of New Writing” authors. Murata’s short fiction has been published by magazines including Granta, who featured her in their Japan issue but this is her English-language debut and we hope for significant press and great bookseller support.

  • The author herself worked at a convenience store in Japan and despite her huge success as a writer still finds the time to do the occasional shift at her store. She is an ideal subject for journalist profiles.

  • A Japanese film adaptation of the novel is underway and there has been interest in the book from American film studios.
  • Editor's Note

    Sweet and strange…

    A delightfully odd book, this slim Japanese novel follows a woman who feels out of place everywhere, except when behind the counter of her convenience store. A surprisingly sweet read about someone who’s probably a sociopath.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGrove Press
    Release dateJun 12, 2018
    ISBN9780802165800
    Convenience Store Woman: A Novel

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    Reviews for Convenience Store Woman

    Rating: 3.9383824870346595 out of 5 stars
    4/5

    1,558 ratings86 reviews

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    • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
      3/5
      Novel about a Japanese convenience store clerk (for 18 years) who could never assimilate herself in society as a "normal" human being. She worked at the store during college and found her niche. Her family tried to help her as a child but nothing worked. It's really a quirky, sweet, poignant and sometimes funny book. She adopts other people's mannerisms, syntax, fashion, etc. to fit in. In a last ditch attempt to appear normal to those around her she has a male loser/freeloader (who once worked at the store) move in with her so that people would think she was in a relationship; and, quit her job to get a real one. In the end, she couldn't do either. She realized she was a "convenience store animal" and that was good enough for her.
    • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      4/5
      This is an understated gem of a novella. What does it mean to be different, to see the world from a different perspective than "normal people? Meet a woman who seeks a sense of being like other people, making use of conversational styles, fashion styles, and more gleaned from people around her. Only in the convenience store does she feel secure. What do each of us do to fit in? The story is quirky, fast-paced, poignant, and thought provoking. Read it!
    • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      4/5
      Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata is a new short novel by a Japanese writer. It is clean, short sentences, refreshing. It is the story of a single woman in Tokyo who at the age of eighteen begins working part time at a convenience store. She stays there for eighteen years and derives her identity and self image from the store. A store where turnover of staff is high, she remains for almost two decades. The story feels Japanese in the strong urge to conform of the main character as well as others. Her friends don't seem to be able to accept that she is unmarried and without children. That makes her somewhat alien in this conformist society. She eventually allows a man, a loser to live with her in her tiny apartment to make it look that she is conforming, though they have no sexual relations and she has never had a sexual relation which makes her friends uncomfortable. It is a bit of a weird book but very satisfying. I highly recommend it.
    • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      4/5
      This intriguing short novel builds slowly but is worth the wait. It is the story of Keiko, the convenience store worker of the title. She is a committed employee who has done the same routine tasks for eighteen years with enthusiasm and diligence.Keiko is aware that she does not feel as other people do. She does not understand the expectations of society but is conscientious in mimicking the people around her. wearing the right clothes, showing the right facial expressions and saying the right things.Keiko comes under a lot of pressure to have a career or a husband or, ideally, both. She does not understand why this matters so much to other people but is careful not to criticise their expectations. Her conformity is enabled by her sister, who is aware of Keiko’s difference but eager to conceal it.Keiko’s life changes when Shiraha begins to work at the convenience store. He too has failed to meet society’s expectations, but rather than adapting, he is angry. He sees himself as a victim and believes it is always someone else, never himself, that is to blame for his problems.This book has such a lovely voice and a subtle, understated humour. It asks interesting questions about what it is to conform and to belong. On the one hand, Keiko’s complete acceptance of the terms of a low-paid, demanding job might feel like exploitation, but on the other she shows strength in constructing a life on her own terms.While the pressure for a woman to marry is perhaps greater in Japan than in the West (embarrassing aunties at your sister’s wedding notwithstanding) it does raise questions about what pressures we do accept without question, and how we look at those who choose not to belong.The people around Keiko, even those who claim to care for her, are only interested in the surface. Keiko struggles to understand the feelings of others, but they have not even tried to understand hers, assuming that her needs are the same as society’s.Keiko is both charming and subversive. When as a child she asked why it is wrong to eat a dead bird found in the park, but alright to buy a dead bird to eat from the supermarket, she showed more logic than most adults. Many of her perceptions are quite sensible, even though she is the one who her friends believe is in need of a ‘cure’.Convenience Store Woman is an engaging story and its simple, spare prose asks some deceptively complex questions.*I received a copy of Convenience Store Woman from the publisher via Netgalley.Read more of my reviews at katevane.com/blog
    • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      5/5
      Love it! Sayaka Murata will be my favorite japanese author after Haruki Murakami & Yasunari Kawabata
    • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      5/5
      Weird and wonderful! A peek into a microcosm so plain but with fascinating inhabitants.
    • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      5/5
      A quick and mesmerising read about a sales clerk named Keiko who doesn't really fit in with the "normal" people of the society. However, does that make her not a part of the society? Do we at all costs have to fit the roles the society imprints on us? This book is Keiko's path of finding that out.
    • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      5/5
      This was a wonderful and quick read. It's an amusing view of society that feels genuine and gives an interesting perspective.
    • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      5/5
      Excellent book, it’s about the struggle to conform to the expectations of the society while neglecting your personal hapiness and true self.
    • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      5/5
      A cold and detached love story between a makeinu and a hikikomori - a mesmerizing look at people in the fringes of a high pressure society.
    • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      5/5
      -So I have been talking a lot about my reading goal… So much to the point that I realized that by the third book I finished yesterday, I wasn’t really even fully soaking in what I was reading. I didn’t think that was fair to the author who I’m sure spent a lot of time and energy writing that piece and it wasn’t fair to myself, not allowing myself to take in what could be a really important message. So today I went back and reread Convenience Store Woman and gave it my full attention. And y’all, I may not reach my reading goal number (which ISNT important, I am trying to get that through my head), but it was so worth it for all that I gained from reading this little book this time around. The following review/analysis of this work is solely based on my opinions of what I took the authors’ message to be…

      The Convenience Store is used as symbolism through this seemingly simple story that is really rich with societal commentary. Through this story of an enthusiastic, Japenese, convenience store working woman, Sayaka Murata speaks to the hierarchy of human needs, beyond those basic staples necessary to sustain life, the motivations we inherently have to reach self actualization. I’m sure many of you have seen Maslov’s pyramid, but this story focuses on a need that he fails to clearly mention, that of a purpose. If an individual feels as though they serve some purpose, the next question is if they are fulfilled by their purpose. Each personality type requires different elements to feel fulfilled or at least content, but if a person is lacking that they tend to look either inward or outward of themselves. Those that look inward try to solve what part they play in their lack of satisfaction from life and others look outside of themselves and try to justify their situation through comparison and oftentimes judgment with those around them because that is easier than putting forth the effort to do the work that self awareness and personal growth requires. Those people often try to understand others actions and level of fulfillment in relation to their own scope of existence and understanding, but what that method fails to do is account that each person is uniquely themselves and what gives happiness to one doesn’t necessarily give that same joy to another. But human beings, myself included often lose sight of that because we inherently want to be able to fit everyone into a mold of the world as we know it. To acknowledge that there is so much experience and knowledge beyond what one single person will ever come even close to understanding in a lifetime is frustrating and overwhelming, many are in denial, we all want to think we do know it all despite the logic that most of us have to know otherwise. One thing that most humans do know quite well is the cultural norms in which are engrained upon simply through living within a given culture. The culture that I unfortunately know so well through personal experience is the same described in this book, a patriarchal society. Though at first glance that may seem like a small piece of the cultural makeup, but I’ve learned and this book emphasized how great a role it really plays in a citizen within that societies life. Like any other systemic system, patriarchy has created its own societal norms and expectations. Rounding back to people within a society that lack the ability to meet one of their basic needs or further a sense of fulfillment, this story demonstrates how that can be caused by conforming to those engrained cultural norms even when they aren’t self serving. The main character Ms. Furukura’s story demonstrates the flip side, an example of someone who live outside those norms by doing what makes sense to her and is ultimately isolated and made to feel such the outsider that she is forced to conform and therefore similarly lose her fulfillment. People who live outside the norm, like Ms. Furukura, make those who abide by the “rules”/traditional roles start to question their own situation and evaluate their own reasoning behind making the choices that led them to following cultural norms. These norms have been engrained into most of us as THE WAY, often without having considered the real plethora of opportunities that each has available to them to chose a unique path. When people can’t classify you or label you as an existing stereotype or societal role, they can feel threatened by their inability to put you in a box. Most times, as is most often the case with ignorance, rather than try to learn and understand previously unknown lifestyles or norms, they condemn them as wrong until they are outcast or forced into cooperation of playing a role that already exists and is more acceptable to them. While everyone certainly has the ability to go against the cultural current, each individual varies in the will to do so, each subconsciously manages their own balance of cost versus reward in abiding by the system. Those who feed into the norm without having consciously chosen it as their best option or consciously knowing that they could live in a more joy giving way but don’t due to a cost they find too high to pay, will continue to berate those that don’t similarly cooperate. Their petty feelings of jealousy at others bravery to be true to themselves while they aren’t doing the same feels more comfortable when they pose those who are different as wrong. By emboldening and strengthening the system that in actuality holds them back, they are creating their own level of privilege within it in having followed the rules and shaming/isolating/making inferior those who don’t. Patriarchal society obviously has a strong influence on acceptable roles and distinctions in lifestyles/assumed personal qualities between genders as well. Women are often referred to as the more emotional gender, yet Ms. Furukura demonstrates an example of a dominantly logical versus emotional woman. Logic (a culturally masculine trait) is seen as superior, yet she is rejected rather than praised for being so. That whole stereotype of women being emotionally unstable is a strategically constructed narrative used to secure men’s continued superior position to women. When contradicted, it isn’t coincidental that those women are actively degraded for not fitting into that conceived mold as it poses a threat to patriarchy and way as we know it. Consequently a further divide is created, as well as a distraction from those who truly garnish power from the system at hand, creating another side in which to see as the foe all while those in power (white men) continue reaping in the benefits. This division is far from self serving, it’s the opposite, supporting misogynistic and suppressive patterns. And the cycle continues… Shiraha also plays this interesting role because as enlightened as some of his commentary is, he is clearly such a sexist, derogatory asshole himself that it just goes to show how self serving and contradicting most human beings are without being taught to self reflect and question their thoughts and beliefs, to examine and challenge the why/reasoning behind their actions. Which makes sense because the privilege inherent with all white men makes them immune to most all of that, blind to the problems that the “others” face because it doesn’t directly effect them. Those societal norms that do effect him is all that he cares about which is so sadly what I have found to be an honest representation of how a lot of people on this world function.

      While on the surface and if you’re not really paying attention, like I wasn’t the first time I skimmed it in efforts of hitting my reading goal, this book just seems like a short quirky story. But when I really examined it, the messages that the author makes left a resounding impact and I think it will too for many readers if they let themselves really go there. My biggest take away is that often the social acceptance that you can receive for fitting a certain mold is not ever going to be as satisfying as finding and committing to what truly makes you happy. Upon further examination, **4.5 stars.
    • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      4/5
      Intriguing. A powerful satire on contemporary life with a fascinating glimpse into Japanese society. Some loose ends concerning the idea of the protagonist’s human/animal status, but it had me hooked from the start.
    • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      4/5
      Funny and interesting insight into societal expectations and people who fail to meet them. It's an interesting look at Japan, but many parts of the story are universal. It's a quick read and an enjoyable one!
    • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      4/5
      Keiko ❤️ It felt so relatable, I keep thinking about it days after finishing.
    • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      4/5
      Odd little story where not much happens aside from reflections on society and what is 'normal'.
    • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      5/5
      Good book great read as more an insight into the mind of someone that is so different but still at the same time relatable in ways.
    • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      4/5
      Quirky, weird and genius.
      Keiko for sure has some kind of difference that is ever only treated as something to be cured and not simply lived with. Maybe she is in the spectrum and well, she is just not interested in normal things. People don't get that is also ok.
      On the other hand, Shiraha... He can go stuff himself where the sun don't shine.
    • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      5/5
      Loved this book so much , incredible just so cool
    • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      4/5
      With this book I have learned many new things about human relations, the mindset that humans have in general, and it turns out that this applies all over the world-not just in my country.
    • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      4/5
      we are nomal in our own way, so keep it up
    • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      5/5
      An interesting, speedy read with many insights into our society and how it treats oddballs
    • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      4/5
      I.. enjoyed it? Something about this book made me question myself countless times, and for all the thriller stories I watched and read, it still caught me off guard and gave me chills at parts. The only thing was that it's a bit more on the medium-slow paced style, but i guess its true to the story that there's not much, if any, change in Keiko's life and voice. So overall, this book is perfect the way it is. Read until the very end.
    • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      4/5
      3,5 stars. the first half is ok (it made me curious and wanted to read more) but the second half have me mad & confused & idk i was like ??? and also shiraha's character ☠☠☠ but i love that shes back as a convenience store worker (just like its title) as she acknowledges who she is & what she wants, rather than having another job to meet society's expectations & being told to do something by shiraha.
    • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
      3/5
      This book is different, and while i appreciate that i didnt particularly enjoy it. At least i dont think so? I liked the protagonist though i found it unclear if she was meant to be sociopathic or just "strange" or something else. I found her tendency to become consumed with work more relatable than I probably should (i dream about my job all the time). I hated her non-love interest with a visceral disgust even though i do recognize his role in her story.
    • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      4/5
      I expect WEIRD from translated fiction at this point, especially from Sayaka Murata. (I read 'Earthlings' this year - phew.) In this short book, Keiko has been working at a convenience store for half her life, it makes her feel human, but then she is 36 and society expects more from her. I don't want to say too much more, as this book is very short! A commentary on what is normal and how society is still in a mindset of the Stone Age. I suggest that this be read side by side with 'Earthlings' - it would help to better understand each book and what the writer is getting at. I appreciate the odd books!
    • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      4/5
      Easy read that takes being defined by your job to its logical extreme. The misunderstanding directed at the narrator is a bit predictable, but overall a nice concept story.
    • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
      3/5
      i liked this book but people who call it "sweet" and "quirky" are seriously missing the point. it's a portrait of a woman who is basically a psychopath in the clinical sense, so detached from reality and emotion that she thinks stabbing an infant is a reasonable way to make him quiet down. she consciously imitates the speech, dress and behavior of those around her to appear normal, all the while barely able to acknowledge her own humanity never mind anyone else's. then one day she meets someone almost as messed up as she is. it ends with a whimper.
    • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      4/5
      This is a deceptively simple tale but one that makes you think,Keiko Furukura, the narrator, is a devoted 36 year old convenience store worker. An "oddball" as a child, her family seeking to "cure" her ,) she finds the regimented world of work suits her beautifully. And although it's a job viewed as lowly and unfitting for a single woman of her age....she feels a valued member of the team. Rather like a bee in a hive...Though life still throws up questions. Friends and family are unsettled by her failure to marry or seek advancement. It occurs to her repeatedly that though the store is "always the same", the actual things IN it are constantly being replaced- from he merchandise to the staff..And then a new employee arrives...The theme is one of conforming, of the societal pressure to follow the herd....Even in the store, Keiko learns later, the other staff would have nights out together...but she wasnt invited.VERY interesting..
    • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      5/5
      I really liked this book - it is a short offbeat read. It winds around in the most unexpected ways and was a really refreshingly different read.
    • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      4/5
      An enjoyable fable of late-capitalism.

    Book preview

    Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata

    Praise for Convenience Store Woman

    A Los Angeles Times Bestseller

    Shortlisted for the Best Translated Book Award

    Longlisted for the Believer Book Award

    Named a Best Book of the Year by the New Yorker,

    Minneapolis Star Tribune, Buzzfeed, Globe and Mail,

    Bustle, WBUR, Hudson, Library Journal, and Shelf

    Awareness

    An Indies Introduce Title

    An Indie Next Pick

    An Amazon Best Book of the Month

    Keiko, a defiantly oddball 36-year-old woman, has worked in a dead-end job as a convenience store cashier in Tokyo for half her life. She lives alone and has never been in a romantic relationship, or even had sex. And she is perfectly happy with all of it … Written in plain-spoken prose, the slim volume focuses on a character who in many ways personifies a demographic panic in Japan.

    —New York Times (profile)

    "Brilliant, witty, and sweet in ways that recall Amélie and Shopgirl … Murata’s sparkly writing and knack for odd, beautiful details are totally her own."

    —Vogue, 13 Books to Thrill, Entertain, and Sustain You This Summer

    "Alienation gets deliciously perverse treatment in Convenience Store Woman … Murata celebrate[s] the quiet heroism of women who accept the cost of being themselves." —NPR’s Fresh Air

    Wonderfully strange … A weird social commentary, an exercise in hyperbole, a paean to order, and, not least, a celebration of the complex design that goes unnoticed by all who step into the humble convenience store.

    —Minneapolis Star Tribune

    A quiet masterpiece that offers a refreshing perspective on human nature through the disarming observations of a social misfit … Seldom has a narrator been so true to a lack of self, and so triumphantly other. —Seattle Times

    It’s the novel’s cumulative, idiosyncratic poetry that lingers, attaining a weird, fluorescent kind of beauty all of its own. —Guardian

    Murata draws a poignant portrait of what happens when a woman’s oppression meets a man’s grievance—and one of them has to give.Huffington Post

    "Reading Convenience Store Woman—a spare, quietly brilliant novel about an offbeat woman whose life revolves around the convenience store she works at—is like being lulled into a soft calm." —BuzzFeed

    "This magical little book performs this neat accordion track in sentences so clean and crisp it’s like they were laminated and placed before you, one at a time, in a well-windex’d cooler. And thus Sayaka Murata has written the 7-11 Madame Bovary." —Literary Hub

    "Sayaka Murata’s novel Convenience Store Woman playfully illustrates the daily routines and ruminations of an eccentric Tokyo salesclerk." —Elle

    "Knock-you-off-your-feet good … Reading Convenience Store Woman feels like being beamed down onto a foreign planet, which turns out to be your own … May we buy out bookstores’ stocks of Convenience Store Woman, and yell Sayaka Murata’s name from the rooftops."

    —Electric Literature

    [A] weirdly charming novel of rebellion.

    —Globe and Mail

    "Convenience Store Woman is a gem of a book. Quirky, deadpan, poignant, and quietly profound, it is a gift to anyone who has ever felt at odds with the world—and if we were truly being honest, I suspect that would be most of us."

    —Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time Being

    "What a weird and wonderful and deeply satisfying book this is. Sayaka Murata is an utterly unique and revolutionary voice. I tore through Convenience Store Woman with great delight."

    —Jami Attenberg, New York Times bestselling author of The Middlesteins and All Grown Up

    A darkly comic, deeply unsettling examination of contemporary life, of alienation, of capitalism, of identity, of conformity. We’ve all been to this convenience store, whether it’s in Japan or somewhere else.

    —Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer

    "This is a story about what’s normal and not, a drama played on a stage so violently plain it becomes as vivid and surprising as an alien planet. I loved Convenience Store Woman: its brevity, its details, its opinions about life."

    —Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

    I picked up this novel on a trip to Japan and couldn’t put it down. A haunting, dark, and often hilarious take on society’s expectations of the single woman. As an extra bonus, it totally transformed my experience of going to convenience stores in Tokyo.

    —Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot

    "Convenience Store Woman is a mighty fine book, completely charming. Sayaka Murata is a wonderful writer."

    —Rabih Alameddine, author of An Unnecessary Woman

    Instructions: Open book. Consume contents. Feel charmed, disturbed, and weirdly in love. Do not discard.

    —Jade Chang, author of The Wangs Vs. the World

    This book is not only readable, it is fun, thought-provoking, and at times outrageous and outrageously funny. It is sure to be a standout of the year.

    —Weike Wang, author of Chemistry

    This novel made me laugh. It was the first time for me to laugh in this way: it was absurd, comical, cute … audacious, and precise. It was overwhelming.

    —Hiromi Kawakami, author of The Nakano Thrift Shop

    "Sayaka Murata’s brilliant Convenience Store Woman can be read as a meditation on the world of personal branding … It’s a sign of excellent literature to be able to effortlessly hold up multiple interpretations at once. Murata’s book is no exception: It’s all of these things while also rendering an artful grotesque of modern personal branding." —The Millions

    "Convenience Store Woman subverts the status quo with the lowliest of settings and the most unlikely warrior. Cunning and seductive … [it] joins the literature of refusal, along with Melville’s ‘Bartleby the Scrivener’ (the clerk who ‘prefers not to’), Beckett’s minimal humans, who dwell in trash bins and sand heaps, and Kafka’s hapless office workers, who try to remain invisible while being watched." —Women’s Review of Books

    A novel that proves sylphlike; spare in its contents, with a masterfully deceptive comic veneer that keeps the reader turning the page … Murata has penned an unlikely feminist tale that unflinchingly depicts the social constructs of being a single woman.Zyzzyva

    Can a 36-year-old woman find happiness working at a ‘Smile Mart’ for the rest of her life? That’s the sneakily subversive proposition floated in this sly little novel.

    —Newsday

    Quirky, memorable … A neat and pleasing fable about the virtues and pleasures of conformity that could only be Japanese.Times (UK)

    Engaging … A sure-fire hit of the summer.

    —Irish Times

    Slim and stunning … Smart and sly … A moving, funny, and unsettling story about how to be a ‘functioning adult’ in today’s world.Publishers Weekly (starred review)

    A dazzling English-language debut in a crisp translation by Ginny Tapley Takemori rich in scathingly entertaining observations on identity, perspective, and the suffocating hypocrisy of ‘normal’ society.

    —Booklist (starred review)

    A sly take on modern work culture and social conformism, told through one woman’s 18-year tenure as a convenience store employee … A unique and unexpectedly revealing English language debut.

    —Kirkus Reviews

    A thought-provoking commentary on the meaning of conforming to the expectations of society. While Murata’s novel focuses on life in Japanese culture, her storytelling will resonate with all people and experiences.

    —Library Journal

    CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN

    SAYAKA MURATA

    Translated from the Japanese by

    GINNY TAPLEY TAKEMORI

    Copyright © 2016 by Sayaka Murata

    English translation © 2018 by Ginny Tapley Takemori

    Cover design by Gretchen Mergenthaler

    Cover photograph © plainpicture/Score. Aflo/Naho Yoshizawa

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or permissions@groveatlantic.com.

    Original published as Konbini ningen. Japanese edition published by Bungeishunju Ltd., Tokyo. English language translation rights reserved to Grove Atlantic, Inc. under license granted by Sakaya Murata arranged with Bungeishunju Ltd. through The English Agency (Japan) Ltd.

    Published simultaneously in Canada

    Printed in Canada

    First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: June 2018

    First Grove Atlantic paperback edition: September 2019

    This book was set in 11 point Berling by Alpha Design & Composition of Pittsfield, NH.

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.

    ISBN 978-0-8021-2962-8

    eISBN 978-0-8021-6580-0

    Grove Press

    an imprint of Grove Atlantic

    154 West 14th Street

    New York, NY 10011

    Grove Atlantic gratefully acknowledges the support from the Japan Foundation for this publication.

    Distributed by Publishers Group West

    groveatlantic.com

    19 20 21 22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

    Table of Contents

    Cover

    Praise for Convenience Store Woman

    Title Page

    Copyright

    Begin Reading

    Excerpt

    Back Cover

    A convenience store is a world of sound. From the tinkle of the door chime to the voices of TV celebrities advertising new products over the in-store cable network, to the calls of the store workers, the beeps of the bar code scanner, the rustle of customers picking up items and placing them in baskets, and the clacking of heels walking around the store. It all blends into the convenience store sound that ceaselessly caresses my eardrums.

    I hear the faint rattle of a new plastic bottle rolling into place as a customer takes one out of the refrigerator, and look up instantly. A cold drink is often the last item customers take before coming to the checkout till, and my body responds automatically to the sound. I see a woman holding a bottle of mineral water while perusing the desserts and look back down.

    As I arrange the display of newly delivered rice balls, my body picks up information from the multitude of sounds around the store. At this time of day, rice balls, sandwiches, and salads are what sell best. Another part-timer, Sugawara, is over at the other side of the store checking off items with a handheld scanner. I continue laying out the pristine, machine-made food neatly on the shelves of the cold display: in the middle I place two rows of the new flavor, spicy cod

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