Androids for the Stone Age?: Individuality, Space, and Gender in Murata Sayaka's Convenience Store Woman

Murata Sayaka's award-winning novel Convenience Store Woman (Konbini ningen, 2016) tells the story of a protagonist who struggles to find her place in society. When she starts working at a convenience store, she finds a space that allows her to be an integrated part of society for the first time in her life. This article explores how Murata uses her story to analyze and criticize contemporary Japanese society. Discussing how the author addresses gender constructions, social conventions, and the meaning of work and the workplace, as well as the position of the individual within society, this article examines how the convenience store is constructed as an agent of socialization and a "holy space" that allows for the genesis of a new species, the "convenience store people" (konbini ningen).