The Diving Pool
Published on 4. September 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
176 pages
978-1-5299-5571-2 (ISBN)
Description
Three strange, tortuous stories from the shadow queen of contemporary Japanese fiction.
A lonely teenage girl falls in love with her foster-brother as she watches him leap from a high diving board into a pool - sparking an unspoken infatuation that draws out darker possibilities.
A young woman records the daily moods of her pregnant sister in a diary, but rather than a story of growth the diary reveals a more sinister tale of greed and repulsion.
Driven by nostalgia, a woman visits her old college dormitory on the outskirts of Tokyo. There she finds an isolated world shadowed by decay, haunted by absent students and the unsettling figure of the looming caretaker.
The Vintage Classics Weird Girls series: Dive into the depraved, delectable depths of weird fiction with nine books by nine pioneering female authors. Bold, disruptive, chilling and enchanting, these tales of the weird are strange enough to get lost in.
A lonely teenage girl falls in love with her foster-brother as she watches him leap from a high diving board into a pool - sparking an unspoken infatuation that draws out darker possibilities.
A young woman records the daily moods of her pregnant sister in a diary, but rather than a story of growth the diary reveals a more sinister tale of greed and repulsion.
Driven by nostalgia, a woman visits her old college dormitory on the outskirts of Tokyo. There she finds an isolated world shadowed by decay, haunted by absent students and the unsettling figure of the looming caretaker.
The Vintage Classics Weird Girls series: Dive into the depraved, delectable depths of weird fiction with nine books by nine pioneering female authors. Bold, disruptive, chilling and enchanting, these tales of the weird are strange enough to get lost in.
Reviews / Votes
Written in haunting, spare, shimmering prose...punctuated by acts of casual violence and vindictive spite. Profoundly unsettling, magnificently written and instantly memorable, these stories vindicate [Ogawa's] status as one of Japan's greatest living writers * Guardian * Yoko Ogawa's British debut is inexcusably belated....Ogawa is a conspicuously gifted writer... Not a word is wasted, yet each resonates with a blend of poetry and tension... mesmerising... To read Ogawa is to enter a dreamlike state tinged with a nightmare, and her stories continue to haunt. She possesses an effortless, glassy, eerie brilliance. She should be discovered in Britain, and this book must surely begin the process * Guardian * The three Japanese novellas in The Diving Pool are both creepy and disturbingly lovely...spine-tingling uncertainty surfaces throughout the haunting prose * Dazed & Confused * A fine collection of three queasily unsettling novellas... She invests the most seemingly banal domestic situations with a chilling and malevolent sense of perversity, marking her out as a master of subtle psychological horror * Daily Telegraph * An intriguing trilogy of exquisitely sketched stories... Elegant, intelligent, quietly disturbing * Financial Times * Original, elegant, very disturbing... on the edge of the unspeakable A welcome introduction to an author whose suggestive, unsettling storytelling speaks volumes by leaving things unsaid * Independent * Hard not to finish in one go, Yoko Ogawa's stories are perfect for spooky bedtime reading - and not-so-sweet dreams * Big Issue * Polished, original and strange. She reveals humour, menace, and humanity in a quietly explosive book * Irish Times * Her combination of the strange with the visceral elegantly conveys silent inner worlds of misery and pain * Metro *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 194 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
132 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5299-5571-2 (9781529955712)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Persons
Yoko Ogawa (Author)
Yoko Ogawa has won every major Japanese literary award. Her fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, A Public Space and Zoetrope. Her works include The Diving Pool, The Housekeeper and the Professor, Hotel Iris and Revenge. Her dystopian novel, The Memory Police, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.
Stephen Snyder (Translator)
Stephen Snyder is a translator and professor of Japanese Studies at Middlebury College, Vermont, USA.
He has translated works by Kenzaburo Oe, Ryu Murakami, and Miri Yu, among others. His translation of Natsuo Kirino's Out was a finalist for the Edgar Award for best mystery novel in 2004, his translation of Yoko Ogawa's Hotel Iris was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2011 and The Memory Police was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2020.
Yoko Ogawa has won every major Japanese literary award. Her fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, A Public Space and Zoetrope. Her works include The Diving Pool, The Housekeeper and the Professor, Hotel Iris and Revenge. Her dystopian novel, The Memory Police, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.
Stephen Snyder (Translator)
Stephen Snyder is a translator and professor of Japanese Studies at Middlebury College, Vermont, USA.
He has translated works by Kenzaburo Oe, Ryu Murakami, and Miri Yu, among others. His translation of Natsuo Kirino's Out was a finalist for the Edgar Award for best mystery novel in 2004, his translation of Yoko Ogawa's Hotel Iris was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2011 and The Memory Police was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2020.