Asa: The Girl Who Turned Into a Pair of Chopsticks is a collection of three short stories, translated from Japanese, which explore outsiders, transformation, and desire for something different. In the first titular story, Asa is a girl who just wants to offer people food, but they will never eat it. In the second story, Nami is strangely impervious to things hitting her, and that leads her to yearn for that contact. And in the final story, the protagonist is a woman who refuses to do anything other than lying down, but when she ventures outside, she finds a strange kindred spirit.

I was drawn to this book by the author and the promised surreal nature of the stories, even though I don't always opt to read short story collections. I like how these are extended stories, with only three in the fairly short collection, and how they start in one place and then the narratives go in quite different directions. The first story, the one from the title, was perhaps my favourite, as the way it explores our desire to support and help other people and our expectations to do so, with a distinctive twist in the turning into a pair of chopsticks. The ending was nicely dark, but also sweet.

The second story is the longest, and perhaps lost me a bit by the end as it feels a bit rambling, like a long summary of a novel rather than a short story. It takes a more serious look at mental health and abuse, whilst keeping the surreal tone and concept. In contrast, the third story was almost over too soon, but I liked how it contrasted what is apparently a normal life and weirder ways of living.

All three stories ask what happens when you live outside the norm, whether through choice or strange quirks of your existence in the world, and that makes this a collection that is likely to resonate with a lot of people.

This collection includes three stories that take a lense into isolation and survival. It creates a new way of looking at the world around you when going through hardships and trying to understand how to move forward. Each story gives an intriguing version of life through the eyes of the main characters. At times these stories border-lined on weird fiction but were quite an experience to read. There is an afterward by Sayaka Murata where the explanation of why this were written the way they are is given perfectly.

In these three short pieces Natsuko Imamura reflects on women’s alienation and the possibility of transformation. As Sayaka Murata notes, in her afterword, this is fiction which dissolves the boundaries between reality and fantasy. The first features Asa a girl who’s desperate to nurture everyone around her but is continually snubbed, even the goldfish at school refuses to eat when it’s her turn to feed him. In a process that lies somewhere between mythical metamorphosis and religious reincarnation, Asa becomes a tree and later disposable chopsticks which enables her to finally fulfil her desire. Simply told, Imamura’s account of Asa’s experiences - including the symbolism of chopsticks in Japanese culture – seems to deliberately echo aspects of Shintoism and animism, beliefs in which inanimate objects possess the potential to house spirits. All of which gives this a fable-like quality. But Imamura’s treatment of her material, her choice of settings and characters combine to form a disturbing commentary on contemporary society: partly focused on gender and self-sacrifice, partly broader issues around waste, disposability and needless consumption.

The next entry also revolves around an isolated girl desperate to satisfy her desires. Imamura’s narrative’s an oblique, moving examination of impoverished women, trauma, mental health and exclusion from mainstream society. Imamura introduces Nami, following her from child to adult. Nami has a strange ability whatever’s thrown at her she’s never hit. This attribute enrages her schoolmates and teachers who notice that when they play games like dodgeball, she’s always the last one standing. Singled out as peculiar, Nami begins to hit herself, self-harm which results in commitment to a psychiatric unit. But here she’s exposed to different, unexpected forms of violence and exploitation which end up blighting her entire life.

The final piece links to earlier themes around submission and women whose lives are skewed by destructive external forces. It’s narrated by a woman who seems to have slotted into her role as housewife, worker and mother with relative ease but she’s secretly haunted by events from her youth. Unable to fall in line with social and cultural expectations, she ran away to live like a cat, on all fours, scavenging for food. She met a boy who’d also become a cat, forming a tentative bond that was brutally ruptured. Although it’s evident that even as a cat the woman failed to evade a more submissive role. Imamura’s writing’s inventive and fluid, I found these stories gripping and tantalisingly complex, but her overall perspective on women’s prospects appears bleak. Although the women in her fiction each triumph in some sense, their achievements come at, what seemed, an exceptionally high price. Translated by Lucy North. Afterword translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

Asa: The Girl Who Turned Into a Pair of Chopsticks was a strange trilogy of stories in some ways: strange but fascinating. They were certainly thought-provoking pieces, even if they pushed the boundaries of believability beyond those of general magical realism. As such, I feel they will likely divide readers into love-hate positions, as if the fantasy elements don't appeal or work for a reader, they could simply view the stories as silly and miss the underlying messages and themes. Based on this book, I would be keen to read more from this author in the future. I am giving it four stars.