There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura

There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura

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There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura

"[A] 21st-century response to Herman Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scrivener.'" -NPR


"A thought-provoking, drily funny critique of capitalism and the systems of self-worth that are built around it." -TIME, "Must-Read Books of the Year"

A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: it is close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing, and ideally, very little thinking.

Her first gig--watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods--turns out to be inconvenient. (When can she go to the bathroom?) Her next gives way to the supernatural: announcing advertisements for shops that mysteriously disappear. As she moves from job to job--writing trivia for rice cracker packages; punching entry tickets to a purportedly haunted public park--it becomes increasingly apparent that she's not searching for the easiest job at all, but something altogether more meaningful. And when she finally discovers an alternative to the daily grind, it comes with a price.

This is the first time Kikuko Tsumura--winner of Japan's most prestigious literary award--has been translated into English. There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job is as witty as it is unsettling--a jolting look at the maladies of late capitalist life through the unique and fascinating lens of modern Japanese culture.

Tsumura, Kikuko: - Kikuko Tsumura is a writer from Osaka, Japan. She has won the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize and numerous Japanese literary awards, including the Akutagawa Prize, Noma Literary Prize, and Dazai Osamu Prize.
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9781635576917
ISBN 10 1635576911
Title There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job
Author Kikuko Tsumura
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
Year published 2021-03-23
Number of pages 416
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.