22nd October 2025
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, United Kingdom
The Akutagawa Prize-winning author Sayaka Murata 村田沙耶香 was on a UK book tour to promote the English release of "Vanishing World" (消滅世界) and her last stop was the opening night of London Literature Festival at the Southbank Centre. As it happens, a movie adaptation of the book is also coming out at the end of November in Japan but I doubt it will be released in the West - the ending would very likely cause some serious controversy. It's always interesting to attend these book events having read the book because you get to hear discussions from multiple perspectives that are almost always different from your own. There is a very strange boom of Japanese literature by female authors in the UK since the pandemic and the works chosen by the publishers to get translated are either the "healing", cozy, casual type of writings about coffee shops and cats, or "feminist" works about independent women fighting for emancipation from oppressive, conformist society. What I find particularly fascinating is that, as was mentioned by Murata herself during the event, a lot of these works are not necessarily set out to be deliberately feminist, but are interpreted as such by the West. Her works ask a lot of questions about what is "normal" in society and collective consciousness and her thought experiments stretch the limits of morality and can touch upon any themes from cannibalism to paedophilia, but somehow a lot of these discussions always end up going back to the female body and soul, as was tonight. "Convenience Store Woman" (コンビニ人間), which has now reached cult-following status, actually has a gender-neutral original title but because of the English title, the whole focus has shifted towards the female protagonist. I actually learned more about book marketing and narrative-shaping in these events than the books and authors themselves, and it's particularly interesting for me to look at a third culture (Japan) via a second (UK) and to experience the cultural clash. It's incredible. I will discuss Murata's books in series of IG posts at a later stage, but you are most welcomed to have a look at my blog to find some reviews that are already online, including "Vanishing World".
No comments:
Post a Comment