The Diving Pool

The Diving Pool

Author	Yōko Ogawa
Original title	Daibingu pūru (ダイヴィング・プール) Ninshin karendā (妊娠カレンダー) Domitorii (ドミトリイ)
Translator	Stephen Snyder
Language	Japanese
Genre	Psychological horror, magical realism, surrealism
Publication date	1990/1991
Publication place	Japan
Published in English	2008
Pages	164
ISBN	9780099521358
Dewey Decimal	895.635

The Diving Pool: Three Novellas is a novella collection by Japanese author Yōko Ogawa, first published in English in 2008. It was Ogawa's first book-length work to be translated.^[1]

The Diving Pool is a triptych of psychological horror stories with a loosely connected theme about Japanese femininity, loneliness, and societal alienation. All three novellas have young female protagonists, a schoolgirl in "The Diving Pool" and young adult women in "Pregnancy Diary" and "Dormitory", who feel isolated and alienated by Japanese society and lash out at their surroundings. The novellas focus on the domestic world, reinterpreting it as a prison for its characters which they try gainlessly to escape; the protagonists are at times uncaring, schizoid, or monstrous in their behaviour towards themselves and the world around them.

The Diving Pool received a positive reception in translation, becoming an object of critical praise and academic study. In the original Japanese, the novellas had been published in separate collections up to a year apart, where they were each individually well received.