Garden

by Hiroko Oyamada, David Boyd (Translator), Lucy North (Translator)

From the author of The Hole and The Factory, a collection of strange and wonderful tales of humans, animals, and plants
Crabs scurrying over a landfill. Huge tadpoles writhing in a pond. A gecko stuck to the window. A sudden invasion of ants. Nature mysteriously creeps in and overruns the realm of humans in this stunning collection of stories.

Hiroko Oyamada masterfully conveys the sense that seemingly stable and ordinary people are cracking at the edges, that a surreal encounter with an animal can change the entire course of one’s life, that an obscure local ritual can have profound consequences. In these fifteen stories we find young couples navigating pregnancies, toddlers, and in-laws; men and women returning to their childhood homes to rediscover the enigmatic traditions they’d left behind; and children who plumb dreamlike riddles in the natural world.

Kindle Edition

Expected publication September 8, 2026

About the author

Hiroko Oyamada (小山田浩子) is a Japanese author. She won the Shincho Prize for New Writers for The Factory, which was drawn from her experiences working as a temp for an automaker’s subsidiary. Her following novel, The Hole, won the Akutagawa Prize.