Vanishing World

by Sayaka Murata

Sayaka Murata is an alien (she’s said so in interviews). The language she uses, even translated, is cute and weird and childlike. Reading her for the first time, the writing can come across as juvenile, the dialogue painfully awkward at times, but pushing through will open you up to a bizarre, wonderful new planet.

In Vanishing World, procreation happens only between a woman and artificial insemination. Marriages are sexless and relationships outside of the home are encouraged. Amane, born by the taboo art of her parents’ copulation and infatuated with myriad anime characters, strives to purify herself of the strangeness of her birth. Will Experiment City, where men can become pregnant using artificial wombs that sit outside of their bodies like balloons and children, all nameless, are raised communally, be her salvation?