UPDATE Thank you for your participation! If you are interested in future Japanese book club events, please email your name and contact information to the Asian Library at asian.library@ubc.ca.

Date, Time & Place
Meet & Greet: Tuesday, January 30, 6:30-8:00 pm
Discussion: Tuesday, February 27, 6:30-8:30 pm
Asian Centre, 1871 West Mall (map)

Fee
$10 per person, including a copy of the book and light refreshments at both sessions.

This book club will be of special interest to current students, alumni and community members who have studied Japanese at an advanced level. We will be reading the novel: コンビニ人間 Convenience Store People by Murata Sayaka.

About the Book: コンビニ人間 (Convenience Store People)

Murata Sayaka’s Convenience Store People gives an in-depth look at the life of a 36 year-old convenience store worker, Furukura Keiko. Keiko is single with no dating history, whose struggles to find her place in the world eventually landed her in a convenience store. Working there for all of her adult life as a part-timer, she has found peace with herself as a normal “component” of society as she eats, drinks, and breathes the perfectly constructed life – until a new male staff aggressively asks her “aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” Placing her “manual”-led existence at jeopardy, the book questions the preconceptions of normality, the conditions of modern life, and what it means to be a “component” of society.

36歳独身、交際歴なしのコンビニ店員、古倉恵子。自分の居場所を探し続け、高校卒業後、とあるコンビニにパート従業員として就職して以来、世界の『正常な「部品」』として存在し続けている。食事も飲み物も、生活すべてがコンビニで成り立っている中、ある新人店員の言葉――『恥ずかしくないんですか』――によって、古倉のマニュアル化された世界に危機が訪れる――。正常とは何か、現代の生活のあり方とは何か、そして社会の「部品」になるとはどういうことなのかを問う作品である。

About the Author: 村田沙耶香 (Murata Sayaka)

Born in 1979, Murata Sayaka is the recipient of the 155th Akutagawa Prize (July 2016) for her book Konbini Ningen [Convenience Store People]. She won the Gunzo Prize for New Writers in 2003 and made her debut with the novel Junyū [Breastfeeding]. Her other works include Satujin Shussan [Murder and Birth], Shometsu Sekai [The Disappearing World], and Gin’iro no uta [The Silver-coloured Song], for which she received the 2011 Noma Literary Prize.

1979年生まれ。2016年、『コンビニ人間』で155回芥川賞受賞。2003年、群像新人文学賞受賞作『授乳』でデビュー。ほかの著書に『殺人出産』、『消滅世界』、野間文芸賞受賞作『ギンイロノウタ』などがある。

About the Facilitator: Cyrus Qiu

Cyrus is currently pursuing his PhD at UBC’s Department of Asian Studies, with a focus on Japanese modern literature and popular culture. Through analyzing the intriguing ideas invested in cultural products such as anime, manga, novels and films, his research explores how various social issues in current Japanese society are represented, problematized and negotiated.

Questions? Please contact Japanese Language Librarian Naoko Kato at naoko.kato@ubc.ca.