Asa - The Girl Who Turned into a Pair of Chopsticks

Asa - The Girl Who Turned into a Pair of Chopsticks by Natsuko Imamura

Curious about the title, I picked up this book straight off the library shelf and went in with a half-engaged eye, lazily scanning the first couple of pages. The first few lines were unlike anything I had read, and before I knew it, I was several pages in and checking out the book so I could take it home and continue reading.

Translated from its original Japanese, Natsuko Imamura presents the reader with three totally different, wildly bizarre, and entirely captivating stories.

In the first story (the eponymous one), Asa begins life as a girl who is crushed by a world that refuses to eat the food she offers. It is a testament to how swept up in this story I was that the sudden snowballing of events - which sees her turned into a tree, chopped down, and made into a pair of disposable chopsticks - felt like an unexpected plot twist, despite the fact it’s literally in the book’s title. Joyful at last to be feeding people, Asa’s story continues to rapidly evolve to its climactic ending, sparked by strong messaging around modern society’s over-consumption.

The second tale presents us with a new young character, Nari. Nari evades being hit – a peculiar and quite literal gift that sees many tormentors over her life repeatedly attempt to bring her down, perplexed and then enraged by her ability to dodge anything thrown at her. While this appears to be a simple premise, the underlying narrative surrounding women being cut down for their talents and gifts comes through strongly, and the internalisation of abuse and misogyny propels Nari into a tragic downward spiral.

In the last story, the reader encounters a young woman so remarkably ‘lazy’ she soon stops walking and lives her life indoors, eating cat food and using a kitty litter tray. (Is she actually a cat at this point? This is left staggeringly ambiguous.) After a disagreement with her father about her lifestyle choice, she escapes out the door and into the street, where she meets a young man who lives dragging himself around the ground on his belly, too.

The dehumanisation of characters and how readily society marginalises people as lesser beings is a thematic thread through all stories. Heavy stuff for short tales that start out like fairytale allegory. Imamura’s writing presents complex commentary delivered in the simplest language, ready to hit your mind with a conflict of the mundane and the bizarre. 

This book isn’t your typical coffee-table read, and I wasn’t even sure if I liked it to begin with. But the stories have stayed imprinted in my brain and won’t leave me. A set of truly impactful stories. If you’re a fan of Murakami, surrealism, or metaphorical stories you can unpack – and continue to unpack – give this one a go.

Find Asa - The Girl Who Turned into a Pair of Chopsticks by Natsuko Imamura.

Karolina