The Ceremony of Life

“The Ceremony of Life” is a collection of short stories by Sayaka Murata, for which her prose is highly regarded in Japan. Cute and shocking at the same time, they catch the reader off guard and linger in memory for a long time.
By intertwining the funny and the horrific, Murata turns the norms of morality and social traditions inside out to reveal the inner world of her characters: outcasts and loners. Understanding where the events unfold — in modern Japan, in the past, or in an alternative reality — can sometimes be quite difficult, as the characters often appear disturbingly normal in a frighteningly unusual world.
In her strange and remarkable stories about family and friendship, sex and intimacy, community and individuality, Murata primarily raises the question of what it means to be human in our world.