Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
Natsuki didn’t fit in with her family as a child. Her sister is given preference by her parents, and her closest companion is a stuffed hedgehog named Piyyut who tells her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a particular mission to assist her in saving the Earth. Every summer, Natsuki looks forward to the trip her family takes to her grandparents’ rustic wooden home in the forest in the Nagano mountains, which is so very different from her dreary commuter town. Natsuki’s cousin Yuu reveals to her one summer that he is an alien and that he scans the sky every night for a spacecraft that could return him to his home planet.
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
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Natsuki questions whether or not she is also an extraterrestrial. Natsuki is reprimanded, disregarded, and even preyed upon by a young teacher at her cram school back in her city home. As she matures in a dangerous, violent environment, she finds solace in her recollections of her time spent with Yuu and unearths a surprisingly formidable inner strength. Even as a married woman, Natsuki feels compelled to conform to a culture she refers to as a “baby factory,” but she still questions whether there is more to life than the banal reality that everyone else appears to accept. Natsuki has the ability to find solutions because they are already out there.
Earthlings questions what it means to be happy in a constricting world and solidifies Sayaka Murata’s reputation as a master chronicler of the outsider experience and our own peculiar universe. It is dreamlike, occasionally frightening, always unusual and delightful.
Earthlings keep up with Natsuki. A girl who has never quite fit in for as long as she can remember. She is the outcast in her family, and they are never too busy to point this out to her. The story begins as young Natsuki, age 11, and her family arrive at her grandparent’s house in the remote Japanese mountainsides for an annual meeting in the summer. The annual pilgrimage and ritual involve huge groups of Natsuki’s extended family and relatives coming together to commemorate the spirits’ departure, or whatever. It’s distinctly Japanese.
