Wondering how life in a convenience store works? Well, Sayaka Murata knows exactly how it does. Murata is a Japanese novelist who wrote ‘Convenience Store Woman’ which won the Akutagawa Prize for Literature in 2016. The novel is the first of her 10 written works to be translated in English.

The story centers on the life of Keiko, an eccentric who has been considered bizarre by her family and friends because of the way she behaves. At 36, Keiko rejects the idea of marriage and continues to work in a dead-end job.

When Keiko started to work in a convenience store, everything in her life changed. She was given a manual that serves as her guide on how she is supposed to behave. She thinks that working in a convenience store will make her a normal person.

So what makes this novel engaging? It’s realism. Many people can relate to the life of the protagonist. In the novel, like what most people experience, Keiko was expected to follow the norm, but she didn’t and continued to work in a convenience store.

Murata really wanted to tell her readers that being odd is the new normal.