Hiroko Oyamada

Hiroko Oyamada (born 1983 in Hiroshima, Japan) is a Japanese author known for short, unsettling novels that blend everyday settings with surreal and absurdist elements, often compared to Kafka. Her debut, The Factory, drew on her own experience as a temp worker at a car-parts manufacturer and won the Shincho Prize for New Writers. Her novella The Hole won the 150th Akutagawa Prize, awarded in January 2014. She continues to live in Hiroshima.