Moreover, Keiko does not really care about marrying and having children or even with upward mobility within her career.

Keiko has superimposed Smile Mart upon herself in a way that is almost surreal: while the store manual is her base, she also copies her coworkers’ style of dressing and speech patterns – this is Keiko’s normal. Keiko finds her safe space within the convenience store this is where she finds predictability that is mandated by a stringent store manual – this dictates the conduct of workers, how they should dress, what they should say and how. Keiko has, in many ways, dissipated into Japanese work-culture. However, it is a shock that almost two decades later, Keiko continues to work at Smile Mart, without a “real career”, husband and children. For them, it meant that Keiko is trying her best to become a functioning and ‘normal’ member of society. For Keiko’s parents, this was a relief as Keiko was an oddball throughout her childhood, often getting into trouble for being brutally honest and having no skills of diplomacy. In Convenience Store Woman, Murata, who still works part-time in a convenience store, chronicles the life of Keiko, who began working at the Hiiromachi Station Smile Mart when it opened (when she was 18). Keiko’s identity revolves around her work, by her volition, exactly how Japanese society would prefer it. In the backdrop of this mysterious mechanistic work-culture, Keiko fits in like a perfect cog – obedient, diligent, with no glitches – exactly like a machine. In fact, Japan is one of the countries where automation is favoured – there are more vending machines in Japanese cities than anywhere else in the world workers in Japan are expected to go beyond their brief to serve their employers and clients their days are structured in a way that work is prioritised over the self. In Japan, work culture is often mechanised. In many ways, Keiko’s story is a sharp criticism of Japan’s mechanistic society, where women have little choice and control.

Murata’s novel is a transgression as it moves between hilarity and hopelessness, and portrays a candid feminist story of a woman who has chosen to confine herself inside a 24-hour convenience store. Keiko is the protagonist of Japanese author, Sayaka Murata’s novel Convenience Store Woman(translated from Japanese to English by Ginny Tapley Takemori) and is a captivating voice, almost always bluntly honest about society’s blurring boundaries between public and private when it comes to women’s lives and bodies. For Keiko, she is a convenience store worker even “more than she is a person”, and for her, it is an informed choice to find structure and peace in this, even if her family, friends and colleagues think otherwise. She is 36 years old, unambitious and a convenience store worker whose life has remained stagnant for 18 years.

Keiko Furukura is a creature of mystery, not just for her readers but also for herself.

Convenience store woman