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Man for hire

Shoji Morimoto offers himself to strangers in Tokyo to queue on their behalf, make a fuss of their dogs or simply provide a human presence

22 July 2023

9:00 AM

22 July 2023

9:00 AM

Rental Person Who Does Nothing: A Memoir Shoji Morimoto, translated by Angus Turvill

Picador, pp.160, 14

Have you ever dreamed of just giving up? Doing nothing? Shoji Morimoto went ahead and did it: so much so that he didn’t even write the memoir that bears his name. Rental Person Who Does Nothing is the story of how he stopped working as a freelance writer and offered himself – just his basic presence, no extras – to strangers in Tokyo, being paid only travel expenses to do nothing, or more accurately next-to-nothing, from waiting in queues to watching people work.

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