Convenience Store Woman

Convenience Store Woman (2016) is a novel by Japanese author Sayaka Murata. The novel was a bestseller in Japan. In 2018, it became the first of Murata’s books to be translated into English, and it has since been translated into 30 additional languages. Murata herself worked at a convenience store and based aspects of the book on her own experiences. Convenience stores (or konbini, as they are familiarly known in Japan) are a ubiquitous feature throughout Japan and an essential part of Japanese consumer culture. The book explores the realities of working in a konbini and what it does to a person’s psyche. Convenience Store Woman won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 2016 and was later adapted into a radio drama for NHK-FM in Japan.

Other work by this author includes the novel, Earthlings.

This guide is based on the Kindle edition of the novel (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori) published in 2018.

Plot Summary

Keiko Furukura is a 36-year-old woman who has been working at a convenience store, the Smile Mart, her entire adult life. Since Keiko was a child, she has felt different, separate, from others; she feels that the only way she can prevent others from being uncomfortable around her is by mimicking them and keeping her views about the world to herself.