Released a year before the best-selling Convenience Store Woman, the novel presents us with an alternative (?) world from a not-so-distant future – a world where any manifestations of carnal love are considered impure, and sex (even between loving people) is a taboo. The only official method of reproduction is artificial insemination, and children conceived by a natural method – like the protagonist, Amane – are harassed and humiliated.
The Vanishing World (that’s how the title can be translated) is a place where marriages are white, but you can feel affection for everyone – friends, family friends, especially TV characters and avatars. Amane and her husband agree to move to the experimental city of Eden, but there their lives begin to take a path they never expected…
A shocking yet thought-provoking vision that Sayaka Murata consistently presents in her subsequent novels.
