コンビニ人間（2016）／村田沙耶香 "Convenience Store Woman" (2016) by Sayaka Murata

Sayaka Murata won the Akutagawa Prize in 2016 for "Convenience Store Woman" (the original Japanese title is actually gender neutral), a book which has now practically become mandatory reading for all Japanese learners. Indeed, the language used never ventures beyond N3 grammar and its brevity makes it a great, easy read. It belongs to the long list of contemporary Japanese literature that questions the individual's position in a conformist society - what is normal? Should one be "normal"? 36-year-old Keiko Furukura uses to be a child considered "different" whose individualism was curbed after a school incident. Since 18, she has been working as a "temporary" staff at the same convenience store since its opening, watching customers and staff come and go, listening to the same noises which are now hardwired in her brain and doing the same mundane tasks every day (Murata herself used to work as a konbini staff in real life). She has no plans nor goals for the future and sees the world via the people around her. That is her world, that is her comfort and she can't leave, and that is basically the whole story. It is a tragicomedy. The dialogues and events are so absurd that it's funny to read, but it's also tragically real in the modern world - what is the meaning of life? The impactful thing is how the world around her evolves - her parents were happy that she got a temp job, then gets worried that she stays in the same job. Everyone is worried that she stays single and does not have a family, and when she gets a cohabiting partner (albeit just faking a relationship with a problematic outcast), people judge her on the partner and it becomes an outcry. You are damned if you do and damned if you don't, and such is how a conformist society functions. This little book does pack a punch, and is a great, realist entry point to Murata's world, which tends to shock with more outlandish thought experiments.