Convenience Store Woman Winner of the Akutagawa-Preis 2016

Convenience Store Woman is a brilliant, weird (in a good kind of way) and defiant little book that hit way closer to home than I expected. Sayaka Murata crafts a hilarious and deeply poignant story about Keiko Furukura, a woman who just wants to live life on her own terms (even if society insists she’s broken for it). Keiko finds comfort in the routine of her convenience store job, and honestly, I felt that. The story challenges the idea that happiness must come from relationships, babies or ‘normal’ life goals. It instead offers a quiet celebration of choosing your own path, even if it confuses everyone else. It’s sharp, funny and feels ‘important’. And with ‘important’ I mean: Keiko’s story is more than a quirky character study; it’s a critique of how hard society works to force us into roles we never asked for.

Wie sieht das Leben einer Person aus, die nicht den Vorstellungen der Gesellschaft entspricht? Auf eine sehr erfrischende Art erzählt Sayaka Murata die Geschichte von Keiko, einer Frau deren Leben sich um ihren Job im Supermarkt dreht, wie sie sich nicht als Mensch wahrnimmt sondern regelrecht als Bestandteil des Marktes sieht "a convenience store animal" . Ihr Umfeld kann sie nicht verstehen und versucht sie deshalb zu "heilen". Warum ist eine 36 jährige Frau so zufrieden mit ihrem Leben, welches so gar nicht der Norm entspricht? Hier bekommt man einen Einblick auf die Schattenseiten einer Gesellschaft aus dem Blickwinkel einer psychisch erkrankten Frau. Toll geschrieben, dieses Buch bleibt in Erinnerung.

I liked it, it moved quickly and Keiko is clearly autistic, though that is never explicitly brought up. I recognized it almost immediately as the parent of an autistic child. Keiko doesn't get why people care so much about fitting the mold; she doesn't actually understand what the mold exactly is or why it matters at all. She enjoys her job because it's the same routine every day, instructions are clear, and everything in the store has its place. There is a method for everything and the store is something that can be learned and repeated without unspoken, complicated social rules. She mimics the mannerisms of others, learning how to "act" in certain ways as socially appropriate through this mimicry; it is clearly not intuition. I appreciated the perspective of an autistic adult. I don't think I've ever read a book from this perspective before.

Sayaka Murata erzählt hier anhand des Lebens einer Konbini Mitarbeiterin das es manchmal wichtiger ist im gewohnten, für einen sicheren Umfeld zu bleiben in dem man durch und durch mit sich glücklich ist, anstatt sich zwangsweise irgendwelchen sozialen Normen zu fügen.

As Keiko is approaching 40, she is getting pressured to find a „real job“, get married and live a „normal“ life. But what exactly is normal? Because of the way her brain is wired, Keiko doesn’t have a problem with spending the rest of her life single and working at a convenience store. She knows her place in the world and doesn’t feel the need to change. But she’s not the only one with a lack of desire to change. After all these years, her environment still expects her to act a certain way. Which is why she mastered the art of mimicking behaviours from a conformist society. Even going as far as pretending to be in a relationship. This book was marketed as a funny and quirky novel, but I honestly found it very sad. It’s written in a humurous way, yes, but reading about a neurodivergent person, who loves her life the way that it is, yet everyone around them seems to think they’re miserable because their life doesn’t represent what their norm is, left me with a feeling I can't really put into words. Even though this novel is a very quick read, I still thought about it for days after, which is why I absolutely recommend everyone to read it.