Book review: Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
In 2020 when Earthlings by Sayaka Murata came out (in translation from Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori) everyone was raving about it. Our local bookshop Storysmith promoted it as one of their bookseller favourites (technically they’re no longer our closest bookshop thanks to the sudden boom in indie bookshops in Bristol, but that’s a topic for another blog post). I was intrigued, and I’d really liked Murata’s previous novel Convenience Store Woman, but I was feeling guilt about how little I was reading (for me) so I put buying new books on hold. Then this summer I fed a friend’s cat while they were on holiday and as a thank you they bought me this. Yay for awesome friends who know the way to my heart.
Like her bestselling previous novel, Murata’s hero in Earthlings is a woman who is emotionally disconnected from the world. But in Natsuki’s case, this may not be due to an innate neurodifference, but rather trauma. Or perhaps a combination.
We meet Natsuki as a child. She believes that her cuddly toy hedgehog Piyyut is an alien from the planet Popinpobopia, a country she first heard of from her beloved cousin Yuu, who she only sees during the summer holidays they spend in the mountains at her grandparents’ home. Yuu claims he is also Popinpobopian and is searching for a spaceship to take him home.
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