No Sex and the Paradise City: A critical reading of Murata Sayaka’s Shōmetsu sekai (2015)

Authors

  • Anna Specchio University of Turin

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/5060

Abstract

Murata Sayaka is a controversial story writer who questions our current values of love, sex and the nuclear family, pivoting on issues like gender and power. In her novel Shōmetsu sekai (Dwindling World, 2015), she depicts a parallel Japan where sex has disappeared, and modern birth control technology is used by the population. Thus, the novel has been labelled as dystopic, and Murata’s readers think of her literary world as disturbing. In the Shōmetsu sekai scenario, gendered-based social differences disappear for the community wellbeing and the new biotechnology is used to improve social conditions. Therefore, should it be considered simply a dystopian work of fiction? By approaching the text from the perspective of feminism and posthumanism, and contextualizing it within Japanese society and Murata Sayaka’s literary framework, I argue that it is possible to consider Shōmetsu sekai as an example of utopic feminist work of fiction, and that the neutralization of sex as we know it today should be intended as a means of social improvement.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Anna Specchio, University of Turin

Research Fellow in Japanese Language and Literature at the University of Turin, Anna Specchio’s research deals with contemporary Japanese Women’s Literature with a focus on the relationship between women and technology and women’s subjectivity in contemporary literature and media, that she analyses using a feminist studies and posthuman studies approach. She is also interested in the intersections between manga and literature. She has translated in Italian works by Higashino Keigo (“La colpa, Atmosphere Libri, 2016; and “Sotto il sole di Mezzanotte,” Giunti, 2018), Iwaki Kei (“Arrivederci, arancione,” Edizioni E/O, 2018), Kawamura Genki (“Se i gatti scomparissero dal mondo,” Einaudi, 2019; “Hyakka,” Einaudi, 2020), Sakuraba Kazuki (“Red Girls,” Edizioni E/0, 2019), Hayashi Mariko (“L’ultimo volo per Tokyo,” Atmosphere Libri, 2020), as well as different manga, among which works by Shinkai Makoto, Nishi Keiko and Anno Moyoko. 

She can be reached at: anna.specchio@unito.it

Downloads

Published

2020-08-21

Issue

Vol. 24 No. 2 (2020)

Section

Articles

License

Gli autori che pubblicano su Kervan accettano le seguenti condizioni:

  1. Gli autori mantengono i diritti sulla loro opera e cedono alla rivista il diritto di prima pubblicazione dell'opera, contemporaneamente licenziata sotto una Licenza Creative Commons - Attribuzione che permette ad altri di condividere l'opera indicando la paternità intellettuale e la prima pubblicazione su questa rivista.
  2. Gli autori possono aderire ad altri accordi di licenza non esclusiva per la distribuzione della versione dell'opera pubblicata (es. depositarla in un archivio istituzionale o pubblicarla in una monografia), a patto di indicare che la prima pubblicazione è avvenuta su questa rivista.