Author(s): Kikuko Tsumura

Fiction | Marianne's Book Talkers

'Surreal and unsettling' OBSERVER CULTURAL HIGHLIGHT'Wise, comical and exceptionally relatable' ZEBA TALKHANI 'Quietly hilarious and deeply attuned to the uncanny rhythms and deadpan absurdity of the daily grind' SHARLENE TEO A woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that requires no reading, no writing and ideally, very little thinking. She is sent to an office building where she is tasked with watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods. But observing someone for hours on end isn't so easy. How will she stay awake? When can she take delivery of her favourite brand of tea? And, perhaps more importantly how did she find herself in this situation in the first place?As she moves from job to job, writing bus adverts for shops that mysteriously disappear, and composing advice for rice cracker wrappers that generate thousands of devoted followers, it becomes increasingly apparent that she's not searching for the easiest job at all, but something altogether more meaningful...

CONSTANT READER STAFF REVIEW: MARIANNE

This contemporary Japanese novel is truly unique, packed with an unexpected degree of whimsy and imagination!

I won’t say a thing about the plot because it’s best to let it take you by surprise, but suffice it to say, it has the uncanny sense of mystery we’ve come to love from contemporary Japanese writers like Haruki Murakami, but combined with a je ne sais quoi that is entirely the author’s own.

It’s a funny, odd gem of a book, a perfect portal out of the drudgery of real life into something that feels familiar and yet, far more strange…