There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job

417 Pages·2021·4.128 MB·English

by  Kikuko Tsumura

‘Ultimately, it is through the winding process of
self-repair that we get to share in the character’s
journey of self-understanding in this altogether
human novel’ Irish Times, Best New Translated
Novels 2020
‘A surreal employment odyssey ... Recommended for
anyone missing time in the office’ Monocle
‘Delightful and disturbing in equal measure ...
Mesmeric, funny, wry, delightful – this is a novel to
help the millennials find their own paths through the
world they’ve inherited’ Lunate
‘It feels pretty timely, as we consider the workplace and
the purpose of work in our lives at a time of cultural
and societal upheaval ... We move through absurdist
tableaux and moments of deadpan, existential drama,
but it’s Tsumura’s incisive eye on the small, everyday
office stresses so many will find deeply relatable that
kept me captivated. The neo-liberal work-life fantasy is
obliterated so beautifully’ Dazed
‘Translated in a droll and understated style by Polly
Barton, part of the novel’s appeal lies in the narrator’s
distinct worldview and her deadpan humor that
allows the surreal, metaphysical connections in the
novel to bubble beneath the surface of her seemingly
dull, day-to-day existence’ Japan Times
‘A wise, comical and exceptionally relatable novel on
finding meaning and purpose in our work lives’ Zeba
Talkhani, author of My Past is a Foreign Country
9781526622259_front_app.indd 1 17/08/21 4:56 PM
‘Quietly hilarious and deeply attuned to the uncanny
rhythms and deadpan absurdity of the daily grind,
Kikuko Tsumara’s postmodern existential workplace
saga both skewers and celebrates our deeply human
need to function in society and keep surviving
in an oftentimes senseless-seeming world’
Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti
‘Read it before you burn out’
Asahi Shimbun Weekly AERA
‘The fantastical flavour of this book is one of its
charms … This is a masterpiece of a book about the
working world’ Kentaro Tomoda, Bunshun Toshokan
‘Spending time in the author’s unique world, which
seems so bizarre and random but is in fact artfully
designed, I found myself healed and restored’
Kazufumi Watanabe, Asahi Shimbun
‘Tsumura’s novel is a pleasing, quietly enjoyable
slice of fiction with a message for those who give
themselves entirely to work, no matter how rewarding
it may be’ A Life In Books
‘Completely different to anything I’ve read before ...
there is an almost dreamlike feeling to the story’
Life With All the Books
9781526622259_front_app.indd 2 17/08/21 4:56 PM
KIKUKO TSUMURA was born in Osaka, Japan,
where she still lives today. In her first job out of college,
Tsumura experienced workplace harassment and quit
after ten months to retrain and find another position,
an experience that inspired her to write stories about
young workers. She has won numerous Japanese
literary awards including the Akutagawa Prize and
the Noma Literary New Face Prize, and her first short
story translated into English, ‘The Water Tower and
the Turtle’, won a PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story
Prize for Emerging Writers. The Japanese Ministry
of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
recognised Tsumura’s work with a New Artist award
in 2016. There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job is her first
novel to be translated into English.
POLLY BARTON is a translator of Japanese literature
and non-fiction, based in the UK. Stories she has trans-
lated have appeared in Words Without Borders, Granta
and the White Review. Full-length translations include
Spring Garden by Tomoka Shibasaki and Where the Wild
Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda. After being awarded the
2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, she published
the non-fiction work Fifty Sounds in April 2021.
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iv
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There’s No Such
Thing As An
Easy Job
kikuko tsumura
Translated from the Japanese by
Polly Barton
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BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK
29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland
BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING and the
Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Konoyoni Tayasui Shigoto Wa Nai written by Kikuko Tsumura.
Copyright © 2015 by Kikuko Tsumura. All rights reserved.
Originally published in Japan by Nikkei Publishing Inc. (renamed Nikkei
Business Publications, Inc. from April 1, 2020), Tokyo
This English language edition published by arrangement with Nikkei
Publishing Inc. (renamed Nikkei Business Publications, Inc. from April 1, 2020),
Tokyo c/o Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo
First published in Great Britain 2020
Copyright © Kikuko Tsumura, 2020
Translation © Polly Barton, 2020
Kikuko Tsumura has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system,
without prior permission in writing from the publishers
This book has been selected to receive financial assistance from English PEN’s
PEN Translates programme, supported by Arts Council England. English
PEN exists to promote literature and our understanding of it, to uphold writers’
freedoms around the world, to campaign against the persecution and imprison-
ment of writers for stating their views, and to promote the friendly co-operation
of writers and the free exchange of ideas: www.englishpen.org.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: TPB: 978-1-5266-2224-2; eBook: 978-1-5266-2223-5;
PB: 978-1-5266-2225-9
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To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and
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9781526622259_front_app.indd 6 27-08-2021 19:49:49
contents
The Surveillance Job 1
The Bus Advertising Job 67
The Cracker Packet Job 147
The Postering Job 223
The Easy Job in the Hut in the
Big Forest 303
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viii
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The Surveillance Job
Both screens showed the same person. The footage
on the left-hand screen dated from 22:00 the previ-
ous night, and the footage on the right-hand screen
from 20:00 the night before that. In both, the person
was wearing the exact same fleece jacket, so without
the little date stamp in the corner there’d be no way
of knowing that there was a day separating the two
images. And in both, the person – or the target of
surveillance, I should say – was doing pretty much the
same thing: sitting on an office chair, staring at a laptop
screen with arms folded across his chest. Just when I
would think he’d given up on the idea of ever moving
again, he’d reach out for the keyboard without warning
and hammer away furiously for thirty seconds before
sinking back into repose, or pull out his dictionary and
consult it with a look of profound weariness, or open
up his browser and sit scrolling with grim focus for
the next hour. In the older footage, on the right-hand
screen, he’d eaten a meal about two hours ago: fried
eggs and ham, accompanied by rice cooked with hijiki
and spinach miso soup. In the one on the left, from
1
9781526622259_txt_app.indd 1 17/08/21 4:55 PM