The Lonesome Bodybuilder

A housewife takes up bodybuilding and sees radical changes to her physique – which her workaholic husband fails to notice. A boy waits at a bus stop, mocking businessmen struggling to keep their umbrellas open in a typhoon – until an old man shows him they hold the secret to flying. A woman working in a clothing boutique waits endlessly on a customer who won’t come out of the fitting room – and who may or may not be human. A newlywed notices her husband’s features are beginning to slide around his face – to match her own.

In these 11 stories, the individuals who lift the curtains of their orderly homes and workplaces are confronted with the bizarre, the grotesque, the fantastic, the alien – and through it, find a way to liberation. The Lonesome Bodybuilder is the English-language debut of one of Japan’s most fearlessly inventive young writers.

BBC Culture Magazine Pick

Akutagawa Prize

Kenzaburo Oe Prize

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