The Factory

The Factory | By Hiroko Oyamada | Translated by David Boyd

Beyond the town, there is the factory. Beyond the factory, there is nothing. Within the sprawling industrial complex, three new employees are each assigned a department.

There, each must focuses on a specific task: one shreds paper, one proofreads documents, and another studies the moss growing all over the expansive grounds. As they grow accustomed to the routine and co-workers, their lives become governed by their work-days take on a strange logic and momentum, and little by little, the margins of reality seem to be dissolving: Where does the factory end and the rest of the world begin? What's going on with the strange animals here? And after a while - it could be weeks or years - the three workers struggle to answer the most basic question: What am I doing here?

With hints of Kafka and Beckett and unexpected moments of creeping humour, The Factory is a vivid, and sometimes surreal, portrait of the absurdity and meaninglessness of the modern workplace.