"Das Loch" (Ana) - Die Autorin Oyamada Hiroko liest aus ihrer Erzählung

With a keen sense of the disturbing in a mysteriously changing world, Oyamada Hiroko tells the story of a young woman who moves from the city to the countryside and searches for her own life between work and family.

A young couple moves from the big city to the countryside. Asa follows her husband, who is transferred by his company, and gives up her own job. Why is she doing this? She is not pregnant, there are no plans to have children, she could commute. And of all places, her husband's home village, the house next door to her in-laws, offers itself as a new home. While her husband works almost around the clock, Asa tries to get used to her new life as a housewife.

It's hot this summer, she's literally being attacked by tons of noisy cicadas, and the only river in the area looks "like it's made of gelatine" because of all the garbage. One day, when Asa sets off for the neighboring village in unbearable temperatures, she falls into a hole that seems to have been dug just for her. From then on, Asa is drawn deeper and deeper into an eerie, unauthorized landscape - until she no longer trusts her perception.

The story was awarded the Akutagawa Prize, Japan's most important literary prize