As the three workers settle into their repetitive routines, they begin to lose their sense of time and purpose. They are well-paid and treated decently, yet none of them know what the factory actually produces. Review of Hiroko Oyamada's The Factory - Split Lip Magazine
: The factory compound functions as a self-contained universe with restaurants, post offices, and shrines, but it notably lacks a graveyard. This suggests a "necropolitical" dimension where workers are used by the system until they simply cease to exist, leaving no trace behind. la fabrica hiroko oyamadaepub
As time progresses—spanning roughly fifteen years—the boundaries between their personal lives and the factory dissolve. The factory is its own universe, containing restaurants, supermarkets, and apartments, making it nearly impossible for the characters to distinguish where the facility ends and the real world begins. The London Magazine Major Themes The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada | Book review | The TLS As the three workers settle into their repetitive
La Fábrica follows three unrelated individuals—Yoshiko, Furue, and Ushiyama—who find themselves employed by a sprawling, nameless industrial complex. The factory is so vast it functions as its own city, complete with its own ecosystem, weather patterns, and unsettling wildlife, such as the "shredder birds" and "factory moss." This suggests a "necropolitical" dimension where workers are
The novel's exploration of work, identity, and the human condition is both timely and timeless. Oyamada's vision of a factory as a site of both oppression and liberation is a powerful commentary on the ways in which our labor shapes us.