I thought I was too different to see myself in a novel – but Sayaka Murata got me | Naoise Dolan
Reading Convenience Store Woman helped me to have confidence in myself as an autistic writerNaoise Dolan is the author of Exciting Times
Two years ago in Dublin, I read the English translation of Sayaka Murata’s 2016 novel Convenience Store Woman. The first paragraph described a Japanese supermarket’s cacophony – tinkling door chime, voices, scanner beeps. I’d been to Tokyo and loved those sounds; and there it was, that embrace.
I kept reading, and kept seeing myself in the narrator. All her life, Japanese convenience store worker Keiko Furukura has had to teach herself how to behave around others. She’s relieved when her head office trainer guides her: “It was the first time anyone had ever taught me
