Olive Fellows (abookolive)'s Reviews > Diary of a Void

Emi Yagi’s delicately wrought debut novel Diary of a Void is about the allure of alternate lives. The protagonist Ms. Shibata’s imaginary baby is the brainchild of curiosity: what would happen if she left the conference room a mess after a big meeting? Since starting her mundane office job at a Tokyo paper-core manufacturing company, becoming the only woman in a sea of men, she’s been expected to do little things outside of her job description: make coffee for everyone during a client visit, replenish the printer ink, tidy up around the office. Small tasks that, when combined, equal a second workload.

One fateful morning she decides to test if any of her coworkers will take over the cleanup if she doesn’t handle it as usual. Will the grown men pick up after themselves unprompted? The answer becomes clear when Shibata’s section head approaches her, requesting her help with the coffee cups. Maybe it’s silent rage, maybe her patience has just run out, because she lies, saying she can’t take care of the mess because the smell of the old coffee triggers her morning sickness. “And that’s how I became pregnant,” she explains.

Her fake pregnancy lies at the center of Diary of a Void, collaboratively translated from the Japanese by David Boyd and Lucy North, though we’re frequently tempted to forget there’s no baby on the way.

Click here to read the rest of my review in the Harvard Review.