Sayaka Murata

From the author of the bestselling literary sensations Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings comes a surprising and highly imaginative story set in a version of Japan where sex between married couples has vanished and all children are born by artificial insemination Sayaka Murata has proven herself to be one of the most exciting chroniclers of the strangeness of society, x-raying our contemporary world to bizarre and troubling effect. Her depictions of a happily unmarried retail worker in Convenience Store Woman and a young woman convinced she is an alien in Earthlings have endeared her to millions of readers worldwide. Vanishing World takes Murata’s universe to a bold new level, imagining an alternative Japan where attitudes to sex and procreation are wildly different to our own. As a girl, Amane realizes with horror that her parents “copulated” in order to bring her into the world, rather than using artificial insemination, which became the norm in the mid-twentieth century. Amane strives to get away from what she considers an indoctrination in this strange “system” by her mother, but her infatuations with both anime characters and real people have a sexual force that is undeniable. As an adult in an appropriately sexless marriage—sex between married couples is now considered as taboo as incest—Amane and her husband Saku decide to go and live in a mysterious new town called Experiment City or Paradise-Eden, where all children are raised communally, and every person is considered a Mother to all children. Men are beginning to become pregnant using artificial wombs that sit outside of their bodies like balloons, and children are nameless, called only “Kodomo-chan.” Is this the new world that will purify Amane of her strangeness once and for all?

Vanishing World

Reading this made me realise that one should not judge too quickly, as everyone comes from a different background. If we are to judge at all, it is our responsibility to first seek understanding before deciding whether someone's perceived the oddness is right or wrong.

azi 蔡

The idea of rightness really is an illusion. Pursuing it is a waste of time.

To hell with being normal. Be as odd as you possibly can. Leave your own mark. Build yourself into someone unmistakably your own. Be a collection of all the beautiful oddities you've gathered along the way.

Normality is the creepiest madness there is. This was all insane, yet it was so right.

Vanishing World quotes

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