A bombshell bestseller in Japan, a provocative, defiant debut novel about a young woman in a care home seeking autonomy and the full possibilities of her life.
Born with a congenital muscle disorder, Shaka spends her days in her room in a care home outside Tokyo, relying on an electric wheelchair to get around and a ventilator to breathe. But if Shaka's physical life is limited, her quick, mischievous mind has no boundaries: she takes e-learning courses on her iPad, publishes explicit fantasies on websites, and anonymously troll-tweets to see if anyone is paying attention ("If I were to live again, I'd want to be a high-class prostitute"). One day, she tweets into the void an offer of an enormous sum of money for a sperm donor. To her surprise, and ours, her new nurse accepts the dare, unleashing a series of events that will forever change Shaka's sense of herself as a woman in the world.
“Hunchback” has shaken Japanese literary culture with its skillful depiction of the physical body and unrepentant humor.
