Have you ever wondered how ‘convenient’ convenience stores are because of its workers? Well, Sayaka Murata, a Japanese novelist, knows exactly how life in a convenience store works.

Muraka wrote “Convenience Store Woman” which won the Akutagawa Prize for Literature two years ago and sold close to 600,000 copies in the United States. The novel is the first of her ten written works to be translated in English.

To give some background on what this award-winning novel is all about, the story centers on the life of a 36-year-old oddball named Keiko. All her life, she has always been considered atypical by her family and friends because of the way she behaves. At her age, she rejects the idea of being in a relationship and is always puzzled by humans’ ‘normal’ behavior.

Luckily for her, the table has turned when she started to work in a convenience store. She finally finds purpose at Smile Mart in which she was given a manual telling her how she is supposed to behave. Keiko believes that working in a convenience store will make her a ‘normal’ person.

What makes the novel so appealing is its realistic plot that most people can relate to. The protagonist herself depicts the life of a person who was forced to follow societal conformity. In the novel, Keiko’s family and friends urge her to get married and choose a more fulfilling career, but she remains to work at Smile Mart and always reject the idea of settling down.

Muraka really wanted to write something that would defy society’s conventional way of thinking. To her, being odd is the new normal.