Translated from the Japenese by Asa Motoya.

The lonesome bodybuilder -- Fitting room -- Typhoon -- I called you by name -- An exotic marriage -- Paprika jiro -- How to burden the girl -- The women -- Q&A -- The dogs -- The straw husband.

A housewife takes up bodybuilding and sees radical changes to her physique - which her workaholic husband fails to notice. A boy waits at a bus stop, mocking businessmen struggling to keep their umbrellas open in a typhoon - until an old man shows him that they hold the secret to flying. A woman working in a clothing boutique waits endlessly on a customer who won't come out of the fitting room - and who may or may not be human. A newlywed notices that her husband's features are beginning to slide around his face - to match her own.In these eleven stories, the individuals who lift the curtains of their orderly homes and workplaces are confronted with the bizarre, the grotesque, the fantastic, the alien - and, through it, find a way to liberation. Winner of the Kenzaburo Oe Prize, Picnic in the Storm is the English-language debut of one of Japan's most fearless young writers.

Translated from the Japanese.