Saou Ichikawa

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE • A bombshell bestseller in Japan, a defiant, darkly funny debut novel about a young woman in a care home seeking autonomy and the full possibilities of her life—“not only a major achievement in disability literature but great literature period” (Johanna Hedva) “A literary phenomenon in Japan, Hunchback is an extraordinary and thrilling debut novel about sex, disability, and power.”—International Booker Prize Judges “Unforgettable . . . a thriller of the body . . . [a] miracle.”—The New York Times Book Review Born with a congenital muscle disorder, Shaka spends her days in her room in a care home outside Tokyo, relying on an electric wheelchair to get around and a ventilator to breathe. But if Shaka’s physical life is limited, her quick, mischievous mind has no boundaries: She takes e-learning courses on her iPad, publishes explicit fantasies on websites, and anonymously troll-tweets to see if anyone is paying attention (“In another life, I’d like to work as a high-class prostitute”). One day, she tweets into the void an offer of an enormous sum of money for a sperm donor. To Shaka’s surprise, her new nurse accepts the dare, unleashing a series of events that will forever change Shaka’s sense of herself as a woman in the world. Hunchback has shaken Japanese literary culture with its skillful depiction of the physical body and its unrepentant humor. Winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, it’s a feminist story about the dignity of an individual who insists on her right to make choices for herself, no matter the consequences. Formally creative and refreshingly unsentimental, Hunchback depicts the joy, anger, and desires of a woman demanding autonomy in a world that doesn’t always grant it to people like her. Full of wit, bite, and heart, this unforgettable novel reminds us all of the full potential of our lives, regardless of the limitations we experience.

A Novel

Hunchback

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I hated museums, and libraries, and any kind of historic building. I loathed old things, whose flawless, polished form had been impeccably preserved. I hated things that endured without breaking, that accrued value through aging. The longer I lived, the more my body collapsed into an ever more aberrant shape. It wasn’t collapsing into death. Rather, it collapsed so as to live, collapsed as a testament to all the time I’d withstood. That made my disability decisively different from the fatal diseases or decrepitude of aging that the able-bodied might experience, where there was variation only in timing

You need to drink more fluids, Shaka. The pulmonary surfactant that helps keep the alveoli inflated and softens the mucus has dried up. 

No, Mom. You’re wrong, that’s not the problem anymore. The problem is that I’ve lived too long. My bones and my lungs have been comprehensively crushed. I’ve lived for too long with these flawed blueprints, and yet I was late to adulthood

Hunchback quotes

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