Diary of a void

Shibata’s life revolves aroud her full-day job at a cardboard tube company where her colleagues give her, the only woman in the team, extra work. One day she takes advantage of a sudden nausea to announce that she is pregnant. The fake pregnancy brings her many benefits, her colleagues take up her work, she has more free time, and she meets new people at a gym for pregnant women. It seems that Shibata has finally filled the void in her life and found her place in the alienated inustrial Tokyo. Bizzare complications raise a dilemma: is it ethical to exploit stereotypical notions of women and pregnancy? Emi Yagi’s comically bitter novel won the prize for the best first fiction novel in Japan.