The Convenience Store by the Sea

This is the first English translation of popular and prolific Japanese novelist Machida, whose internationally bestselling book celebrates human connections to food, comfort, adventure, and community. In a quaint seaside town in Japan, the Tenderness is a 24-7 convenience store that firmly adheres to its credo, “Caring for people, caring for you.” The store’s handsome manager, Shiba, exudes a charm and near-mystical allure that have earned him a cultlike following of customers, most notably the older ladies from the adjacent Golden Villa Apartments. Shop assistant Mitsuri secretly puts a version of Shiba into her manga, where she has dubbed him the “phero-manager” and depicts his escapades and the attentions of his adoring fans. Machida’s novel (the first book in a series about the Tenderness) weaves together individual stories to form a detailed, lush picture of relationships and their fuel, notably the care taken with the food and beverages sold by the convenience store.

Sonoko Machida won the influential Japan Booksellers’ Award in 2021 with her much-loved novel 52-Hertz Whales, which went on to sell over 400,000 copies. This translation into English by Sam Bett is long awaited. Born in Fukuoka Prefecture in 1980, Sonoko Machida left school to become a hairdresser. While in her twenties, she realized she had a strong wish to write stories. She brought up her children as a single parent and continues to write bestselling fiction in Japan. Her most recent book to be translated into English is The Convenience Store by the Sea.

Bruno Navasky is a teacher, writer, and translator. Navasky work as a translator and editor includes Festival in My Heart: Poems by Japanese Children and Poem in Your Pocket for Young Poets. He was the founding editor of American Poet, the journal of The Academy of American Poets, where he now serves on the board of directors. He lives and works in New York City.