Yōko Ogawa

Yōko Ogawa
is a Japanese writer. Her work has won every major Japanese literary award, including the Akutagawa Prize and the Yomiuri Prize. Internationally, she has been the recipient of the Shirley Jackson Award and the American Book Award. The Memory Police was also shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2020.
Some of her most well known works include The Housekeeper and the Professor, The Diving Pool and Hotel Iris.
Background and education
Ogawa was born in Okayama, Okayama Prefecture, and attended Waseda University, Tokyo. When she married her husband, a steel company engineer, she quit her job as a medical university secretary and wrote while her husband was at work. Initially, she wrote only as a hobby, and her husband didn't realise she was a writer until her debut novel, The Breaking of the Butterfly, received a literary prize. Her novella Pregnancy Diary, written in brief intervals when her son was a toddler, won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for literature, thus cementing her reputation in Japan.
She currently lives in Ashiya, Japan.
Career
Since 1988, Ogawa has published more than fifty works of fiction and nonfiction. Much of her work has yet to be translated into English. In 2006, she worked alongside the mathematician Masahiko Fujiwara to co-write "An Introduction to the World's Most Elegant Mathematics", a dialogue on the extraordinary beauty of numbers.
Her work has been published in the New Yorker, A Public Space and Zoetrope.
The 2005 French film L'Annulaire (The Ringfinger) was based in part on Ogawa's Kusuriyubi no hyōhon. Her novel The Housekeeper and the Professor was adapted into the movie The Professor's Beloved Equation. In partnership with Amazon studios, Reed Morano and Charlie Kaufman are set to adapt The Memory Police.
Themes and influences
Kenzaburō Ōe has said, "Yoko Ogawa is able to give expression to the most subtle workings of human psychology in prose that is gentle yet penetrating." Her English translator, Stephen Snyder, has said that “There is a naturalness to what she writes so it never feels forced...Her narrative seems to be flowing from a source that’s hard to identify.”
Frequently, she explores the theme of memory in her works. For instance, The Housekeeper and the Professor follows a mathematics professor who cannot remember anything for longer than eighty minutes, and The Memory Police is about a group of islanders who gradually forget the existence of certain things, such as birds or flowers. Human cruelty features as another prominent theme in her work, as she is interested in exploring what drives people to commit acts of physical or emotional violence. She often writes about female bodies and the woman's role in a family, which has led many to label her as a feminist writer. Ogawa is hesitatant about this label, stating instead that she "just peeked into [the world of her characters] and took notes from what they were doing".
The Diary of Anne Frank has been a significant source of inspiration to her throughout her career. She first encountered the diary as a teenager, and was inspired to start a diary of her own, writing back to Anne as though they were friends. She notes how “Anne’s heart and mind were so rich,” and that “her diary proved that people can grow even in such a confined situation. And writing could give people freedom.” Given its themes of persecution and confinement, The Memory Police in particular is a response to Anne's diary and the Holocaust in general.
While at Waseda University, she was influenced by fellow Japanese authors such as Mieko Kanai, Kenzaburō Ōe, and Haruki Murakami. She also felt influenced by the American author Paul Auster, who she believes “writes a spoken literature—it feels like he’s written down a story someone told him, rather than creating it himself. Shibata’s translation was also very important, but when I read Moon Palace I thought ‘This is how I’d like to write.’ Like I’m just a medium for transferring a story from the world outside.”
Awards and honors
1988 Kaien literary Prize (Benesse) for her debut The Breaking of the Butterfly (Agehacho ga kowareru toki, 揚羽蝶が壊れる時)
1990 Akutagawa Prize for Pregnancy Diary (Ninshin karendaa, 妊娠 カレンダー)
2004 Yomiuri Prize, Bookseller's Award for The Professor's Beloved Equation (Hakase no aishita sūshiki, 博士の愛した数式; translated as The Housekeeper and the Professor)
2004 Izumi Kyōka Prize for Burafuman no maisō, ブラフマンの埋葬
2006 Tanizaki Prize for Meena's March (Mīna no kōshin, ミーナの行進)
2008 Shirley Jackson Award for The Diving Pool
2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlist for Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales (Japanese; trans. Stephen Snyder)
2020 American Book Award for The Memory Police (Japanese; trans. Stephen Snyder)
2021 Medal with Purple Ribbon
Works in English translation
Novels and novellas
The Diving Pool (Daibingu puru, ダイヴィング・プール, 1990; Ninshin karendā, 妊娠カレンダー, 1991; Dormitory, ドミトリイ, 1991); translated by Stephen Snyder, New York: Picador, 2008. ; published on The New York Times in 2006
The Memory Police (Hisoyaka na kesshō, 密やかな結晶, 1994), translated by Stephen Snyder, Pantheon Books, 2019.
Hotel Iris (Hoteru Airisu, ホテル・アイリス, 1996), translated by Stephen Snyder, Picador, 2010.
The Housekeeper and the Professor (Hakase no ai shita sūshiki, 博士の愛した数式, 2003); translated by Stephen Snyder, New York : Picador, 2008.
Short stories and collections
"Pregnancy Diary" (Ninshin karendā, 妊娠カレンダー, 1991); translated by Stephen Snyder, The New Yorker, 12/2005. Read here
"The Cafeteria in the Evening and a Pool in the Rain" (Yūgure no kyūshoku shitsu to ame no pūru, 夕暮れの給食室と雨のプール, 1991); translated by Stephen Snyder, The New Yorker, 9/2004. Read here
"Transit" (Toranjitto, トランジット, 1996); translated by Alisa Freedman, Japanese Art: The Scholarship and Legacy of Chino Kaori, special issue of Review of Japanese Culture and Society, Vol. XV (Center for Inter-Cultural Studies and Education, Josai University, December 2003): 114-125.
"The Man Who Sold Braces" (Gibusu o uru hito, ギブスを売る人, 1998); translated by Motoyuki Shibata, Manoa, 13.1, 2001.
Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales (Kamoku na shigai, midara na tomurai, 寡黙な死骸みだらな弔い,1998) Translated by Stephen Snyder, Picador, 2013.
Other works
Agehachō ga kowareru toki, 揚羽蝶が壊れる時, 1989, Kaien Prize
Kanpeki na byōshitsu, 完璧な病室, 1989
Same nai kōcha, 冷めない紅茶, 1990
Shugā taimu, シュガータイム, 1991
Yohaku no ai, 余白の愛, 1992
Angelina Sano Motoharu to 10 no tanpen, アンジェリーナ―佐野元春と10の短編, 1993
Yōsei ga mai oriru yoru, 妖精が舞い下りる夜, 1993
Hisoyaka na kesshō, 密やかな結晶, 1994
Kusuriyubi no hyōhon, 薬指の標本, 1994
Rokukakukei no shō heya, 六角形の小部屋, 1994
Anne Furanku no kioku, アンネ・フランクの記憶, 1995
Shishū suru shōjo, 刺繍する少女, 1996
, やさしい訴え, 1996
Kamoku na shigai, midara na tomurai, 寡黙な死骸みだらな弔い, 1998
Kōritsui ta kaori, 凍りついた香り, 1998
Fukaki kokoro no soko yori, 深き心の底より, 1999
Gūzen no shukufuku, 偶然の祝福, 2000
Chinmoku hakubutsukan, 沈黙博物館, 2000
Mabuta, まぶた, 2001
Kifujin A no sosei, 貴婦人Aの蘇生, 2002
Burafuman no maisō, ブラフマンの埋葬, 2004, Izumi Kyōka Prize
Yo ni mo utsukushī sūgaku nyūmon, 世にも美しい数学入門, 2005 (An Introduction to the World's Most Elegant Mathematics)
Inu no shippo o nade nagara, 犬のしっぽを撫でながら, 2006
Mīna no kōshin, ミーナの行進, 2006 , Tanizaki Prize
Otogibanashi no wasuremono, おとぎ話の忘れ物, 2006 (illustrated)
Umi, 海 2006
Hajimete no bungaku Ogawa Yōko, はじめての文学 小川洋子 2007
Hakase no hondana, 博士の本棚, 2007
Monogatari no yakuwari, 物語の役割, 2007
Ogawa Yōko taiwa shū, 小川洋子 対話集, 2007 (conversations)
Yoake no fuchi wo samayou hitobito, 夜明けの縁をさ迷う人々, 2007
Kagaku no tobira wo nokku suru, 科学の扉をノックする, 2008
Karā hiyoko to kōhīmame, カラーひよことコーヒー豆, 2009
Kokoro to hibikiau dokusho annai, 心と響き合う読書案内, 2009
Neko wo daite zou to oyogu, 猫を抱いて象と泳ぐ, 2009
Genkou reimai nikki, 原稿零枚日記, 2010
Moso kibun, 妄想気分, 2011
Hitojichi no roudokukai, 人質の朗読会, 2011
Tonikaku sanpo itashimasho, とにかく散歩いたしましょう, 2012
Kotori, ことり, 2012
Saihate ākēdo, 最果てアーケード, 2012
Itsumo karera wa dokoka ni, いつも彼らはどこかに, 2013
Kohaku no matataki, 琥珀のまたたき, 2015
Fujichaku suru ryūsei tachi, 不時着する流星たち, 2017
Kuchibue no jōzu na shirayukihime, 口笛の上手な白雪姫, 2018
Kobako, 小箱, 2019
''Yakusoku sareta idō, 約束された移動, 2019
References
Interviews
"Writer Ogawa Yōko’s Stories of Memory and Loss" (by Kimie Itakura),'"Nippon com", March 2020
External links
J'Lit | Authors : Yoko Ogawa | Books from Japan
Akutagawa Prize winners
Yomiuri Prize winners
1962 births
Living people
People from Okayama
Japanese women novelists
Japanese women short story writers
Writers from Okayama Prefecture
Recipients of the Medal with Purple Ribbon