Hiroko Oyamada


Hiroko Oyamada is a Japanese writer. She has won the Shincho Prize for New Writers, the Oda Sakunosuke Prize, and the Akutagawa Prize.

Early life and education

Oyamada was born in Hiroshima and remained there throughout her school years, eventually graduating from Hiroshima University in 2006 with a degree in Japanese literature. After graduation Oyamada changed jobs three times in five years, an experience that inspired her debut story "Kōjō", which received the 42nd Shincho Prize for New Writers in 2010. After her debut Oyamada worked a part-time editorial job at a local magazine, but quit after marrying a co-worker.

Career

In 2013 Oyamada won the 30th Oda Sakunosuke Prize for a short story collection containing "Kōjō" as the title story. Later that year Oyamada's novella Ana, about a woman who falls into a hole, was published in the literary magazine Shinchō. Ana won the 150th Akutagawa Prize. One of the Akutagawa Prize judges, author Hiromi Kawakami, commended Oyamada's ability to write about "fantasy in a reality setting." In 2014 Oyamada received the 5th Hiroshima Cultural Newcomer Award for her cultural contributions. In 2018 Oyamada's third book, a short story collection called Niwa, was published by Shinchosha.
An English edition of "Kōjō", translated by David Boyd, was published by New Directions Publishing under the title The Factory in 2019. Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Sam Sacks noted that the "tonal blandness" of the writing style matched the feeling of repetitive, meaningless office work. In a starred review of The Factory for Publishers Weekly, Gabe Habash praised Oyamada's ability to make the reader experience the same disorientation as the book's main character, concluding that the book would leave readers "reeling and beguiled".
Oyamada has cited Franz Kafka and Mario Vargas Llosa as literary influences. In his review of Granta's special issue on Japanese literature, James Hadfield of The Japan Times compared Oyamada's writing to that of Yōko Ogawa and said that her work "suggests good things to come from this promising young writer."
Oyamada lives in Hiroshima with her husband and daughter.

Recognition

In Japanese