A little girl who loses her ability to sleep when she moves to a new country. A woman so disconnected from others that she identifies with concrete buildings. Two schoolgirls who keep a middle-aged man as a pet. A man who leaves behind detailed recipes on how to cook his body parts after he dies.
These are just some of the characters in ¡°Life Ceremony,¡± Sayaka Murata¡¯s latest collection of short stories published in English. Readers have come to expect the bizarre and unconventional from Murata ever since her highly-acclaimed English-language debut ¡°Convenience Store Woman¡± and follow-up novel ¡°Earthlings.¡± Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori, this 12-story collection delivers all that and more.

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