VANISHING WORLD by Sayaka Murata

Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata is a bold, highly imaginative speculative novel by the acclaimed author of Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings. Set in an alternative version of Japan where conventional sexual reproduction between married couples has completely vanished—replaced by mid-twentieth-century shifts toward artificial insemination and communal child-rearing—the story follows a woman named Amane. Having grown up haunted by the realization that her own parents engaged in natural procreation, Amane strives to distance herself from what she views as an archaic and unsettling norm. As an adult, she enters into an appropriately sexless marriage with her husband, Saku, where marital intimacy is strictly taboo. Together, they relocate to a bizarre utopian settlement known as Experiment City, or Paradise-Eden, where children are raised communally, external artificial wombs allow men to experience pregnancy, and traditional family structures are entirely dismantled. Murata uses this surreal premise to once again explore the strangeness of societal norms, conformity, and human desire.