Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers who like Sayaka Murata's style and her conceptual experiments
- Readers interested in faith, herd mentality, and standards of "normal"
- Literary readers accustomed to contemporary Japanese fiction and receptive to absurd premises
- Readers who want reflective stimulation delivered in a light tone
Not a good fit for
- Readers expecting traditional realist narrative and clear moral judgment
- Readers sensitive to or uncomfortable with religion and brainwashing themes
- Readers who prefer warm, healing stories and dislike an ironic tone
Reading tips
- First, note the passages where the narrator repeatedly stresses "reality," and mark the tone of her self-justification.
- After finishing, recall the sister's question and then judge whether the narrator's position is reliable.
- Read it alongside the author's other works and observe how she examines the everyday order.
- Read in groups of two or three chapters, leaving gaps to feel the discomfort the absurdity produces.
About the publisher
Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 信仰
- 生存
- 地脉润起
- 回归母星
- 文化冲击
- 愉悦这种罪
- 未写成的小说
- 最后的展览会
FAQ
Is this book a serious discussion of religion?
I haven't read any other Sayaka Murata works—can I read this one directly?
Does the title "Faith" refer to faith in the religious sense?
Comments
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About the author
Sayaka Murata is a Japanese writer. Public information about her is limited, and details such as her dates of birth and death, education, and awards cannot be confirmed at present. The collection includes four of her works, among them Convenience Store Woman, Shinkō, and Chikyū Seimei, as well as the thirty-volume Warm and Beautiful Novel Collection, to which she contributed alongside other authors; these titles are commonly classified as foreign literature. Convenience Store Woman is her signature work, set in the everyday space of a convenience store, and through the protagonist's perspective it examines society's discipline of "normality" and the individual's sense of alienation, in a calm and restrained style with a distinct absurdist flavor. Her writing often begins with everyday details and focuses on the tensions among gender, the body, and social norms, questioning the existing order within seemingly plain narratives, which gives her a recognizable voice in contemporary Japanese literature.
