Women in Japanese Contemporary Literary Fiction
Presented by Japan-America Society of Tennessee
Please join special guest host and award-winning writer Masami Izumida Tyson for the debut of “Reading Between the Lines with JAST” as she leads an interactive discussion of life in contemporary Japan as revealed through writer Sayaka Murata’s semi-autobiographical novel Convenience Store Woman, winner of the 2016 Akutagawa Award.
Masami will be joined by our guest readers - Dr. Cynthia Bisson with Belmont University, Dr. Fusae Ekida with Middle Tennessee State University and Dr. Noriko Horiguchi with University of Tennessee Knoxville.
“Art, though, is never the voice of a country; it is an even more precious thing, the voice of the individual, doing its best to speak, not comfort of any sort, but truth. And the art that speaks it most unmistakably, most directly, most variously, most fully, is fiction; in particular, the novel.”
~ Eudora Welty in On Writing
JAST's Women's Leadership Forum brings into focus the critical need to invest in the advancement of women everywhere, but specifically in the U.S. and Japan. By advancing social and economic equality, women from all walks of life stand to benefit from participating in societies free from gender bias. In turn, both the U.S. and Japan stand to reap rewards aplenty in the form of future jobs growth, economic and political stability, and inclusive prosperity.
Speaker
Masami Tyson
Global Director of FDI and Trade
Tennessee Economic and Community Development
Masami Izumida Tyson was born and raised in Yokohama, Japan. She received her B.A. and M.A. in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and was the recipient of the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts for her collection of poetry. Masami taught writing workshops to graduate students at the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences at Johns Hopkins as well as to high school students in Tennessee, prior to earning her J.D. at Vanderbilt Law School and transitioning to a twenty-year career in law as a federal law clerk, a litigator, and in-house counsel at several global companies. Masami currently serves as the Global Director of Foreign Direct Investment and Trade for the State of Tennessee’s Department of Economic and Community Development. She is married to a wonderful husband and has three awesome kids.
タイソン昌美 神奈川県横浜市出身。ジョンズ・ホプキンズ大学にて学士号・修士号取得。ルイ・サドラー芸術賞受賞。ジョンズ・ホプキンズ大学院にて講師勤務を経た後、バンダービルト大学ロースクール法務博士号取得。連邦裁判所、法律事務所、企業法務部部長勤務等を二十年程経験、現在はテネシー州政府経済地域開発庁にてグローバル・ディレクター。家族とナッシュビル在住。
Guest Readers
Cynthia Bisson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of History
Belmont University
Fusae Ekida, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of World Languages, Literatures,
and Cultures
Middle Tennessee State University
Noriko J. Horiguchi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Chair
Japanese Program
The University of Tennessee Knoxville
Book Selection
Convenience Store Woman
by Sayaka Murata
Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction―many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual―and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Managers come and go, but Keiko stays at the store for eighteen years. It’s almost hard to tell where the store ends and she begins. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action.
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