The Lonesome Bodybuilder
A BBC Culture Magazine Pick of November Books
Winner of the Akutagawa Prize
Winner of the Kenzaburo Oe Prize
A Vulture.com Pick of Most Anticipated Books of Fall
A Nylon Magazine Pick of Book You'll Want to Read This Fall
A Millions.com Pick of Most Anticipated Books of the Second Half of 2018
A Huffington Post Pick of Books We Can't Wait to Read
A Bustle Pick of Most Anticipated Books by Indie Presses
A Time Magazine Pick of the Best Books of the Month
An Indie Next List selection
A Literary Hub Pick of 16 Books to Read This November
A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice of the Week
Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
A Paste Magazine Pick of Best Audiobooks of 2019 (So Far)
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 that 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 that her husband’s features are beginning to slide around his face―to match her own.
In these eleven 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.
Praise