Alienated and oppressed young women are the heroes of a new collection of surreal short stories by Natsuko Imamura.
‘Asa: The Girl Who Turned into a Pair of Chopsticks’, translated into English by Lucy North, consists of three stories. The narrators each have a clearly defined conceit that marks a tense relationship with society. Despite all her efforts, Asa, from the title story, cannot get anyone, human or animal, to accept food when she offers it. Nami, in “Nami, Who Wanted to Get Hit (and Ultimately Succeeded),” is desperate for a physical blow — in dodgeball, on the playground — but the punches never land. Happy-chan has given up life as a bipedal human in “A Night to Remember” and has chosen to live belly down and drag herself around by her elbows.
The stories, published between 2017 and 2020, share features with Imamura’s novel “The Woman in the Purple Skirt,” which won Japan’s prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 2019, after two other stories by the author were nominated but did not receive the award.
