Author(s): Sayaka Murata

Fiction | Mel M's Book Talkers

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.

CONSTANT READER STAFF REVIEW: MEL M

From the author of the acclaimed Convenience Store Woman and comes this awesomely strange collection of short stories, so many of which made me think in different ways about myself and the world.

These stories are bizarre and sometimes startling and even sickening, but they have the effect of making you wonder what aspects of life we hold as normal that through another lens might be regarded as deeply odd or questionable.

 Murata seems ultimately to be interested in estranging her readers from the world we think we know, and upon returning to it after reading Life Ceremony, it’s richer, deeper, and weirder than we ever could have imagined!

Read this if you liked Chloe Wilson’s Hold Your Fire, Temporary by Hillary Leichter, or are in the mood for something a bit off-kilter!