The English-language debut of one of Japans most exciting new writers, The Factory follows three workers at a sprawling industrial factory. Each worker focuses intently on the specific task theyve been assigned: one shreds paper, one proofreads documents, and another studies the moss growing all over the expansive grounds.

Their lives slowly become governed by their workdays take on a strange logic and momentum, and little by little, the margins of reality seem to be dissolving: Where does the factory end and the rest of the world begin? Whats going on with the strange animals here?

And after a whileit could be weeks or yearsthe three workers struggle to answer the most basic question: What am I doing here? With hints of Kafka and unexpected moments of creeping humor, The Factory casts a vividand sometimes surrealportrait of the absurdity and meaninglessness of the modern workplace.

“Through these characters, Oyamada has crafted a titanic ecosystem of modern work life, complete with the obligatory never-ending office dinner with co-workers and the emergence of strange new species conjured up by the meaningless, enervating patterns of the 9-to-5 existence.” Japan Times

“Hiroko Oyamadas The Factory descends from a lineage of workplace fiction that includes Melvilles ‘Bartleby the Scrivener,” Joseph Hellers Something Happened and Ricky Gervais The Office.” Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

“Oyamada is fond of jump cuts and scenes that dissolve mid-paragraph and flow into the next without so much as a line break. A pleasant vertigo sets in. Objects have a way of suddenly appearing in the hands of characters. Faces become increasingly vivid and grotesque. Nothing feels fixed; everything in the book might be a hallucination.” Parul Sehgal,The New York Times