i’ll be honest: Hunchback made me deeply uncomfortable. not because the protagonist shaka is disabled, but because of how explicitly, and often disgustingly, the sexual scenes are written. i usually get grossed out by over-descriptive sex scenes in fiction anyway, whether it’s in new adult novels or anywhere, and this book really pushed me past my comfort zone.

that said, i can see why it won the akutagawa prize and why people praise it. saou ichikawa is doing something deliberately provocative. she refuses to let shaka be portrayed as an object of pity, inspiration, or angelic suffering. instead, shaka is allowed to be messy, angry, obsessive, and sexual.

i see that the grotesque detail is part of the point — to dismantle the idea that disabled people should be desexualised, or represented only as innocent and inspirational. shaka is granted agency through fantasy and narrative, even if her fantasies are disturbing or unfulfilling in practice. the novel keeps blurring lines between fantasy and reality, power and vulnerability, online and offline, forcing us to examine where our disgust actually comes from.

while i admire the courage of what ichikawa is trying to do, i can’t pretend it was an enjoyable read for me. it left me feeling unsettled and grossed out, which means the book achieved exactly what it set out to do.