Sayaka Murata

From the author of international bestseller “Convenience Store Woman” comes a collection of short fiction: weird, out of this world and like nothing you’ve read before.

An engaged couple falls out over the husband’s dislike of clothes and objects made from human materials; a young girl finds herself deeply enamoured with the curtain in her childhood bedroom; people honour their dead by eating them and then procreating. Published in English for the first time, this exclusive edition also includes the story that first brought Sayaka Murata international acclaim: ‘A Clean Marriage’, which tells the story of a happily asexual couple who must submit to some radical medical procedures if they are to conceive a longed-for child.

Mixing taboo-breaking body horror with feminist revenge fables, old ladies who love each other and young women finding empathy and transformation in unlikely places, Life Ceremony is a wild ride to the outer edges of one of the most original minds in contemporary fiction.

Life Ceremony

I’ll have to reference this story to shitty people all the time 

“People who always eat the same food are constantly missing out on the opportunity to learn, you see.”

“But it always was, wasn’t it? That’s what family is. Children always leave the nest,”

Klara Hansen 

“Human hair is just the thing to wear for formal occasions, like meeting your future in-laws.”

Lindsay

Instinct doesn't exist. Morals don't exist. They were just fake sensibilities that came from a world that was constantly transforming transforming.

I mean, normal is a type of madness, isn't isn't it? I think it's just that the only madness society allows is called normal.

“Do you think we're weird?" He shook his head. "No, I don't. I mean, normal is a type of madness, isn't it? I think it's just that the only madness society allows is called normal." 

akshita

Everyone keeps telling little lies, and that’s how the mirage is created. That’s why it’s beautiful—because it’s a momentary make-believe world.

normal is a type of madness, isn’t it? I think it’s just that the only madness society allows is called normal.

傑恩

“I glanced down at my own nails. They looked identical to the ones on the chandelier. After I died, how lovely it would be to have them made into such a beautiful chandelier for someone to enjoy.”

“A hundred years later, what would our bodies be used for? Would we be chair legs or sweaters or clock hands? Would we be used for a longer time after our deaths than the time we’d been alive?”

Life Ceremony quotes

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