Women in Translation Book Club: Diary of A Void (online)

Please note this meeting will be online. There will be a mixture of in-person and online meetings throughout the year.

The Women In Translation reading group provides a free, friendly and gentle environment in which opinions are shared and new appreciations can be discovered. A place for curious minds and relaxed conversation hosted by poet and translator Annie Rutherford.

For October 2025 the book will meet online to discuss Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi, translated by David Boyd and Lucy North

Please support the bookshop & the book club by ordering your books through Lighthouse, Use the code LONG-VICTORIOUS-WIT for bookclubbers 10% off.

The book:

Ms Shibata refuses to clear away the coffee at work one day, because she's pregnant and can't bear the smell.

The only thing is . . .

Ms Shibata is not pregnant. Being a mother-to-be isn't easy. Ms Shibata has a nine-month ruse to keep up.

Before long, it becomes all-absorbing, and with the help of towel-stuffed shirts and a diary app that tracks every stage of her 'pregnancy', the boundary between her lie and her life begins to dissolve.