The Dilemmas of Working Women: Stories

"Now offered in translation for the first time, this collection featuring women navigating societal expectations (and their small rebellions) is a classic." -- Boston Globe

A spiky, edgy collection of five sly yet sensitive stories spotlighting clear-eyed and "difficult" women who are navigating their identities as workers and women in contemporary Japan--a feminist, anti-capitalist modern classic published outside Asia and in English for the first time.

The Dilemmas of Working Women is Fumio Yamamoto's darkly witty look at modern Japanese women who are ambivalent about their lives and jobs. In "Naked," a woman who's simultaneously lost her business and her husband finds that it is surprisingly comfortable to stay at home sewing stuffed animals, even if it makes her a "loser" in the eyes of society. In "Planarian," a young woman recovering from breast cancer tells her friends and boyfriend that she would prefer to be the titular worm to organically regenerate her body. Each of these spiky women--as well as the three other protagonists in this groundbreaking work--chafes against social expectations that equate work with worth and demand women squeeze into the confining and sometimes dehumanizing role of employee in a world built by and for men.

First published in Japan in 2000, The Dilemmas of Working Women struck a nerve with Japanese readers and became a bestselling literary sensation, selling nearly half a million copies and winning the prestigious Naoki Prize in Literature. A quarter of a century later, this brilliant modern classic--available for the first time outside Asia and in English--remains deliciously funny and astonishingly relevant.

Translated from the Japanese by Brian Bergstrom

Brian Bergstrom is a lecturer and translator who has lived in Chicago, Kyoto, and Yokohama. His writing and translations have appeared in publications including Granta, Aperture, Lit Hub, Mechademia, Japan Forum, positions: asia critique, Queer: A Collection of LGBTQ Writing from Ancient Times to Yesterday, and The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories. He translated Erika Kobayashi's novel Trinity, Trinity, Trinity (2022) and story collection Sunrise: Radiant Stories (2023) with Astra House, the former winning the 2022 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature. His latest translation is Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto by Kohei Saito (W&N & Astra House, 2024). He is currently based in Montréal, Canada.

Fumio Yamamoto (1962-2021) was a Japanese writer of novels and essays. Her books include Loveaholic, which won the 1999 Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for New Writers, and the collection The Dilemmas of Working Women which won the prestigious Naoki Prize and became bestselling phenomenon.