Sayaka Murata builds a dystopian world of sexless marriages

Sayaka Murata, the Japanese author who has built a name for herself in making readers squirm through her absurdist and unsettling takes on societal norms, stays true to form in Vanishing World.

- Walter Sim

VANISHING WORLD By Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori Fiction/Granta Books/Paperback/ 233 pages/$26.95

The 45-year-old's fourth novel in English, translated by her long-time collaborator Ginny Tapley Takemori, is as quintessentially Murata as it gets in questioning the very idea of normality.

Murata has, after all, consistently challenged conventional expectations. In her breakout novel Convenience Store Woman (2018), about a social misfit who thrives in the humdrum routine of the ubiquitous konbini, the protagonist is a woman who "plays the part of a fictitious creature called an 'ordinary person'.

Earthlings (2020) follows a character who is convinced she is an alien forced to conform in "The Factory", or society at large. Life Ceremony (2022) describes the idea of normality as "a type of madness".

This latter description is echoed in the disturbing and daring Vanishing World, where normality is "the creepiest madness there is".

Is Murata a one-trick pony, albeit one who is extremely adept at blending borderline horror with social commentary and dark humour?