Diary of a Void

Yagi’s subversive and surreal debut illuminates the demands of being a woman and a mother in modern society. Thirty-four-year-old Shibata works at a manufacturing company, having fled her previous job to escape sexual harassment. The grinding sameness of her work, where she is expected to do traditionally feminine tasks—washing the dirty dishes, cleaning the refrigerator, distributing snacks—is finally too much. She announces that she can no longer do these tasks, as she is newly pregnant. Shibata is not, in fact, pregnant, but her declaration changes everything. With wonder and delight, narrator Nancy Wu describes how Shibata, no longer expected to work overtime, revels in her newfound freedom. She rests, binge-watches Amazon Prime, and joins an aerobics class for expectant mothers. Shibata’s satisfaction with her improved circumstances and curiosity about her pregnancy is vibrantly communicated through Wu’s narration. Listeners will be entranced by the lengths that she goes to in order to perpetuate her lie, and they, along with Shibata herself, may wonder if there’s more to her pregnancy than meets the eye.