Anthologies#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Read Real Japanese Essays |
2008 |
Buy |
Short Stories/Novellas#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| The Diving Pool |
1990 |
Buy |
| Dormitory |
2008 |
Buy |
Yōko Ogawa Collections Reading Order#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| The Diving Pool: Three Novellas |
1990 |
Buy |
| Revenge |
1998 |
Buy |
Yōko Ogawa Non-Fiction#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Color In Fashion |
1989 |
Buy |
Yōko Ogawa Standalone Novels Reading Order#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| The Memory Police |
1994 |
Buy |
| Hotel Iris |
1996 |
Buy |
| The Gift of Numbers / The Housekeeper and the Professor |
2003 |
Buy |
| Mina’s Matchbox |
2006 |
Buy |
| Les Lectures des otages |
2011 |
Buy |
Yoko Ogawa writes fiction where the ordinary slides into something strange without ever raising its voice. The Memory Police describes an island where things vanish — birds, roses, photographs — and the people forget they ever existed. The Housekeeper and the Professor (published in Japan as The Gift of Numbers) is warmer, following a housekeeper’s relationship with a math professor whose memory resets every eighty minutes.
Her short fiction, collected in The Diving Pool and Revenge, shows the same controlled style applied to smaller-scale stories about obsession, isolation, and the ways people fail to connect. Ogawa has been one of Japan’s most acclaimed writers since the early 1990s, and her work in English translation has found readers who appreciate fiction that disturbs through restraint rather than spectacle.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many books has Yoko Ogawa written?
Yoko Ogawa has written eleven books across five series.
What was Yoko Ogawa's first book?
Yoko Ogawa’s first book is Color In Fashion, published in 1989.
What is Yoko Ogawa known for?
Ogawa is known for The Memory Police, a dystopian novel about an island where objects and memories disappear, and The Housekeeper and the Professor, a gentle story about a mathematician with short-term memory loss and the housekeeper who cares for him. Her fiction is marked by precise, understated prose and an atmosphere of quiet menace.