Life Ceremony: Stories
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

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Published
Grove Atlantic , 2022.
Status
Available from Libby/OverDrive

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Description

The long-awaited first short story-collection by the author of the cult sensation Convenience Store Woman, tales of weird love, heartfelt friendships, and the unsettling nature of human existence

With Life Ceremony, the incomparable Sayaka Murata is back with her first collection of short stories ever to be translated into English. In Japan, Murata is particularly admired for her short stories, which are sometimes sweet, sometimes shocking, and always imbued with an otherworldly imagination and uncanniness.

In these twelve stories, Murata mixes an unusual cocktail of humor and horror to portray both the loners and outcasts as well as turning the norms and traditions of society on their head to better question them. Whether the stories take place in modern-day Japan, the future, or an alternate reality is left to the reader’s interpretation, as the characters often seem strange in their normality in a frighteningly abnormal world. In “A First-Rate Material,” Nana and Naoki are happily engaged, but Naoki can’t stand the conventional use of deceased people’s bodies for clothing, accessories, and furniture, and a disagreement around this threatens to derail their perfect wedding day. “Lovers on the Breeze” is told from the perspective of a curtain in a child’s bedroom that jealously watches the young girl Naoko as she has her first kiss with a boy from her class and does its best to stop her. “Eating the City” explores the strange norms around food and foraging, while “Hatchling” closes the collection with an extraordinary depiction of the fractured personality of someone who tries too hard to fit in.

In these strange and wonderful stories of family and friendship, sex and intimacy, belonging and individuality, Murata asks above all what it means to be a human in our world and offers answers that surprise and linger.

More Details

Format
eBook
Street Date
07/05/2022
Language
English
ISBN
9780802159595

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A frequent touch of the surreal enlivens these literary short stories. The darkly humorous stories in Life Ceremony are set in Japan, while the unsettling stories in Let's Go are set in Japan and America. -- Michael Shumate
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Citations

APA Citation, 7th Edition (style guide)

Murata, S., & Takemori, G. T. (2022). Life Ceremony: Stories . Grove Atlantic.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Murata, Sayaka and Ginny Tapley Takemori. 2022. Life Ceremony: Stories. Grove Atlantic.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Murata, Sayaka and Ginny Tapley Takemori. Life Ceremony: Stories Grove Atlantic, 2022.

Harvard Citation (style guide)

Murata, S. and Takemori, G. T. (2022). Life ceremony: stories. Grove Atlantic.

MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)

Murata, Sayaka, and Ginny Tapley Takemori. Life Ceremony: Stories Grove Atlantic, 2022.

Note! Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy. Citation formats are based on standards as of August 2021.

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