Convenience Store Woman meets My Year of Rest and Relaxation in this strange, compelling, darkly funny tale of one woman’s search for meaning in the modern workplace
Kikuko Tsumura was born in Osaka, Japan, where she still lives
today. In her first job out of college, Tsumura experienced
workplace harassment and quit after ten months to retrain and find
another position, an experience that inspired her to write stories
about young workers. She has won numerous Japanese literary awards
including the Akutagawa Prize and the Noma Literary New Face Prize,
and her first short story translated into English, 'The Water Tower
and the Turtle', won a PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for
Emerging Writers. The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science and Technology recognized Tsumura's work with a New
Artist award in 2016. There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job is her
first novel to be translated into English.
Polly Barton is a translator of Japanese literature and
non-fiction, based in the UK. Stories she has translated have
appeared in Words Without Borders, Granta and The White Review.
Full-length translations include Spring Garden by Tomoka Shibasaki
and Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda. After being awarded
the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, she is currently
working on a non-fiction book entitled Fifty Sounds.
Tsumura’s portrait of the daily grind is spot-on, her observations
wryly tender. Polly Barton’s translation captures the deadpan
absurdity and subtle surrealism in this inventive Japanese
novel
*Mail on Sunday*
Ultimately, it is through the winding process of self-repair that
we get to share in the character’s journey of self-understanding in
this altogether human novel
*Irish Times, Best New Translated Novels 2020*
‘An irreverent but thoughtful voice, with light echoes of Haruki
Murakami ... the book is uncannily timely ... a novel as smart as
is quietly funny
*Financial Times*
Polly Barton’s translation skilfully captures the protagonist’s
dejected, anxious voice and her deadpan humour ... imaginative and
unusual
*Times Literary Supplement*
I have never read such relatable writing about the small stresses
of working and how they can feel like disasters at the time. She
captures the small apocalypse of an admired colleague leaving, or
the sense of powerlessness when a higher-up interferes
*i paper*
Surreal, wickedly funny … it feels pretty timely, as we consider
the workplace and the purpose of work in our lives at a time of
cultural and societal upheaval ... We move through absurdist
tableaux and moments of deadpan, existential drama, but it’s
Tsumura’s incisive eye on the small, everyday office stresses so
many will find deeply relatable that kept me captivated. The
neo-liberal work-life fantasy is obliterated so beautifully
*Dazed*
Bringing to mind aspects of the terrific Convenience Store Woman, a
surreal exploration of finding meaning in life
*i paper*
Surreal and unsettling
*Observer*
Translated in a droll and understated style by Polly Barton, part
of the novel’s appeal lies in the narrator’s distinct worldview and
her deadpan humor that allows the surreal, metaphysical connections
in the novel to bubble beneath the surface of her seemingly dull,
day-to-day existence
*Japan Times*
A fascinating, immersive novel about a young Japanese woman moving
from one mundane job to another, searching for employment that
doesn’t require her to think too much. But she soon finds out that
no matter how simple her set tasks, there are intrigue, magic and
the unexpected to each one. Fans of My Year Of Rest And Relaxation
will adore this exquisitely deadpan book, adeptly translated by
Polly Barton
*Red*
A surreal employment odyssey ... Recommended for anyone missing
time in the office
*Monocle*
A brilliant riposte ... don't get mad, get even – and then get even
better
*Saga*
A wise, comical and exceptionally relatable novel on finding
meaning and purpose in our work lives
*Zeba Talkhani, author of My Past is a Foreign Country*
Quietly hilarious and deeply attuned to the uncanny rhythms and
deadpan absurdity of the daily grind, Kikuko Tsumara's postmodern
existential workplace saga both skewers and celebrates our deeply
human need to function in society and keep surviving in an
oftentimes senseless-seeming world
*Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti*
Read it before you burn out
*Asahi Shimbun Weekly AERA*
The fantastical flavour of this book is one of its charms … This is
a masterpiece of a book about the working world
*Bunshun Toshokan*
Spending time in the author’s unique world, which seems so bizarre
and random but is in fact artfully designed, I found myself healed
and restored
*Asahi Shimbun*
Delightful and disturbing in equal measure ... Mesmeric, funny,
wry, delightful – this is a novel to help the millennials find
their own paths through the world they’ve inherited
*Lunate*
Tsumura’s novel is a pleasing, quietly enjoyable slice of fiction
with a message for those who give themselves entirely to work, no
matter how rewarding it may be
*A Life In Books*
Completely different to anything I’ve read before ... there is an
almost dreamlike feeling to the story
*Life With All the Books*
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