Sayaka Murata - Life Ceremony

Sayaka Murata - Life Ceremony 

4 ⭐

Genre:  Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Japanese Literature, Asian Literature, Translated Fiction, East Asian Literature, Short Stories, Horror, Mystery 

Translated by: Ginny Tapley Takemori 

Original Title: 生命式 [Seimeishiki]  

Original Language: Japanese 

Pages: 266

Format: Kindle (Digital) 

Publisher: Granta Books 

Date Published: 1st October 2019

 

Book Blurb: 

From the author of international bestseller Convenience Store Woman comes a collection of short fiction: weird, out of this world and like nothing you’ve read before.

An engaged couple falls out over the husband’s dislike of clothes and objects made from human materials; a young girl finds herself deeply enamoured with the curtain in her childhood bedroom; people honour their dead by eating them and then procreating. Published in English for the first time, this exclusive edition also includes the story that first brought Sayaka Murata international acclaim: ‘A Clean Marriage’, which tells the story of a happily asexual couple who must submit to some radical medical procedures if they are to conceive a longed-for child.

Mixing taboo-breaking body horror with feminist revenge fables, old ladies who love each other and young women finding empathy and transformation in unlikely places, Life Ceremony is a wild ride to the outer edges of one of the most original minds in contemporary fiction.

My Review: 

OMG! This book was something else! In both, good and very grossly disturbing ways. The good is that this book is different to anything else I have ever read before. The grossly disturbing is that each story makes you feel like you are in a horror version of the Black Mirror episode. However, the writing is amazing, just as amazing as it was in Convenience Store Woman. I enjoyed the different parts of all twelve stories and learned so much, as each of them had a different hidden message in it.

Throughout 12 stories Murata explores our societal norms and traditions in a very creative way. Most of the stories ask ‘’what if..?’’ and makes you question whether the norms and traditions we have now wouldn’t be weird for others that come before us or will come after us. I felt that each story makes the reader question what societal norms are and who creates them. It also makes people question what is considered normal and what is not.

Overall: I really recommend this book, but be aware that is not a light-hearted read. There are so many gruesome, disgusting, and weird parts in every story, yet you also take something important and informative from each of the stories too. If you like horror and if you like Black Mirror, then you will definitely enjoy Life Ceremony! 

About the Author:

Sayaka Murata (in Japanese, 村田 沙耶香) is one of the most exciting up-and-coming writers in Japan today. She herself still works part time in a convenience store, which gave her the inspiration to write Convenience Store Woman (Konbini Ningen). She debuted in 2003 with Junyu (Breastfeeding), which won the Gunzo Prize for new writers. In 2009 she won the Noma Prize for New Writers with Gin iro no uta (Silver Song), and in 2013 the Mishima Yukio Prize for Shiro-oro no machi no, sono hone no taion no (Of Bones, of Body Heat, of Whitening City). Convenience Store Woman won the 2016 Akutagawa Award. Murata has two short stories published in English (both translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori): "Lover on the Breeze" (Ruptured Fiction(s) of the Earthquake, Waseda Bungaku, 2011) and "A Clean Marriage" (Granta 127: Japan, 2014). 

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