The Novelry Blog

It is with modest boldness, I say to you that creativity is about putting two things together which should not go together.

Such as modesty and boldness.

The greater the opposition between the two things, the more attention the new construction merits.

You start with the idea for your novel itself and you take this through your practice in prose.

This creative method is practical and simple.

'Convenience Store Woman'.

This week I have been reading Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (2018). It was described in The Guardian review as 'sublimely weird.' 

'This deadpan Japanese tale of an oddball shop assistant possesses a strange beauty.' Julie Myerson.

A literary prize-winner that's also a page-turner, it sold 660,000 copies in Japan alone and won  Japan’s most prestigious literary prizes, the Akutagawa Prize. Convenience Store Woman is a  portrayal of contemporary Japan through the eyes of a single woman who fits into the rigidity of its...