MAM
A quiet ode to Yōko Ogawa’s female gaze
What Haruki Murakami overlooks, Yōko Ogawa insists on seeing
MUMBAI: If there was a Booker Prize for the number of times an author could fail the bechdel test, Haruki Murakami would win it every year, followed closely by John Updike and Philip Roth.
Murakami’s work has long drawn criticism for its depiction of women, who are often rendered less as fully realised individuals than as bodies to be observed. Physicality routinely eclipses agency in his writing, with women framed through a persistent male gaze that mirrors broader societal patterns of objectification.
If Murakami’s fiction is a corridor through which women pass, Yōko Ogawa’s is a room in which they inhabit fully. Here, they can stretch and breathe without every gesture being filtered through a sexualising lens. Here, their sexuality belongs to them alone, free from the weight of judgment.
Why Murakami’s women read like emotional rehab for broken men
In 1Q84 and Norwegian Wood, the female characters are frequently described in ways that emphasise their physical attributes, sometimes in contexts where such details feel gratuitous.
Another common critique centres on how female characters often function within the narrative and lack agency of their own: they tend to appear in the male protagonist’s life as catalysts for his emotional or spiritual development, rather than pursuing their own goals. This “muse” or “medium” archetype, which Murakami himself has acknowledged in interviews, can render female characters as plot devices.
In an interview with novelist Mieko Kawakami, Murakami justified his stance on women when asked about why it can be so exhausting to see this pattern show up in fiction: a reminder of how women are sacrificed for the sake of men’s self-realisation or sexual desire.
He explained, “Not to sound dismissive, but my writing doesn’t follow any kind of clear-cut scheme. Take Norwegian Wood, where Naoko and Midori are respectively grappling with their subconscious and conscious existences. The first-person male narrator is captivated by them both, and it threatens to split his world in two.”
“Then there’s After Dark. The story is propelled almost exclusively by the will of the female characters. So I can’t agree that women are always stuck playing the supporting role of sexual oracles or anything along those lines. Even once I’ve forgotten the storylines, these women stay with me,” he added.
While Murakami may resist schematic intent, the repetition of these tropes across decades of work suggests a structural pattern rather than an incidental one. The prevalence of sexual content involving female characters, has further intensified criticism, particularly in a contemporary literary climate more attuned to questions of power, agency, and representation.
What complicates the debate is Murakami’s global appeal. His work is often praised for its dreamlike atmospheres, emotional loneliness, and metaphysical curiosity, qualities that have earned him a devoted international readership.
For some fans, the women in his novels are symbolic figures operating within a surreal register, not meant to conform to realist expectations. For others, that symbolic framing is precisely the problem: abstraction becomes a convenient alibi for erasure.
Yōko Ogawa and the feminist lens contemporary literature needs
In Yōko Ogawa’s fiction of the late 1980s and 1990s, female narrators often linger over the fragile beauty of youthful masculinity, even as they remain trapped within the abject disorder of feminised domestic spaces. Kitchens, bedrooms and dining tables: sites conventionally associated with care and containment, become zones of unease, where desire, violence and decay coexist.
Food, especially sweet food, recurs as an unsettling motif in Ogawa’s work. Cakes, jam and ice cream appear across Pregnancy Diary (1991), Sugar Time (1991) and Revenge, not as sources of comfort but as expressions of female desire, bitterness and suppressed violence. These images of sweetness often sit alongside moments of bodily harm, hinting at a close link between indulgence and transgression.
In Revenge, they also draw attention to a homosocial female gaze (women observing other women) through which femininity is continually examined, particularly when shaped by anger or harmful impulses. Ogawa’s quiet, self-aware depiction of the woman writer further unsettles these themes, gently destabilising the familiar trope of the “mad” woman whose fantasies are dismissed as excess or pathology.
With prose that is restrained yet deeply unsettling, Ogawa explores memory, the body, desire and isolation, frequently through female perspectives that resist easy categorisation. Below is a curated list of her most widely read and influential works, each offering a distinct entry point into her world of healthy female gaze.
The Memory Police (1994)
Set on a nameless island where objects, and the memories attached to them, disappear without warning, this dystopian novel follows a writer trying to preserve what remains. As language, identity and history erode, Ogawa meditates on power, surveillance and the fragility of human connection. It is her most internationally recognised work.
Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales (1998)
A linked collection of short stories connected by recurring images and characters, Revenge moves through kitchens, hospitals and apartments haunted by death, jealousy and obsession. Violence emerges quietly, often through domestic details, making the book one of Ogawa’s most disturbing and acclaimed works.
The Housekeeper and the Professor (2003)
One of Ogawa’s gentler novels, this story centres on a brilliant mathematician who can retain memories for only 80 minutes, and the housekeeper and son who enter his life. Mathematics becomes a language of intimacy, offering moments of grace amid loss and limitation.
Pregnancy Diary (1991)
Told from the perspective of a detached observer, this short novel chronicles a woman’s unsettling fixation on her sister’s pregnancy. Everyday domestic rituals, especially food, become sites of quiet menace, revealing Ogawa’s early mastery of psychological horror.
Hotel Iris (1996)
Set in a decaying seaside town, this novel traces a sadomasochistic relationship between a teenage hotel clerk and an older translator. Spare and disturbing, Hotel Iris examines power, desire and emotional numbness without moral commentary.
The Diving Pool (1990)
This early collection features three novellas exploring adolescent cruelty, voyeurism and repression. In the title story, a young woman’s fascination with a boy at a swimming pool slowly turns sinister, showcasing Ogawa’s ability to mine darkness from stillness.
The Museum of Silence (1995)
A museumologist is invited to work in a remote village where grief and ritual blur into the surreal. This novel reflects Ogawa’s fascination with preservation: of bodies, memories and emotions, and the eerie calm that often accompanies loss.
Brands
YES Bank hands the keys to SBI veteran Vinay Tonse as it bets on a new era
Former SBI managing director appointed as YES Bank’s new MD and CEO
MUMBAI: YES Bank is done rebuilding. Now it wants to grow. The private sector lender has appointed Vinay Muralidhar Tonse as managing director and chief executive officer-designate, with RBI approval secured and a start date of April 6, 2026 confirmed. The three-year term signals the bank’s intent to shift gears from crisis recovery to full-throttle expansion.
Tonse, 60, is no stranger to scale. Most recently managing director at State Bank of India, he oversaw a retail book of roughly $800bn in deposits and advances, one of the largest in the country. Before that, he ran SBI Mutual Fund from August 2020 to December 2022, a stint that saw assets under management surge from Rs 4.32 lakh crore to Rs 7.32 lakh crore across market cycles. Add stints in Singapore and four years leading SBI’s overseas operations in Osaka, and the incoming chief arrives with a genuinely global CV.
His academic grounding is equally solid: a commerce degree from St Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bengaluru, and a master’s in commerce from Bangalore University.
The appointment follows an extensive search and evaluation process by the bank’s Nomination and Remuneration Committee. NRC chairperson Nandita Gurjar said the committee unanimously backed Tonse, citing his leadership track record, governance credentials and ability to drive the bank’s next phase of transformation.
Non-executive chairman Rama Subramaniam Gandhi was unequivocal. “I am certain that Vinay Tonse, with his vast experience as a senior banker, will propel YES Bank to its next phase of growth,” Gandhi said, adding that the bank remains focused on strengthening its retail and corporate banking franchises and expanding its branch network.
Rajeev Kannan, non-executive director and senior executive at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, the bank’s largest shareholder, said Tonse’s experience across retail, corporate banking, global markets and asset management positioned him well to lead the lender. SMBC said it looks forward to working with Tonse and the board as YES Bank pursues its ambition of becoming a top-tier private sector lender anchored in strong governance and sustainable growth.
Tonse succeeds Prashant Kumar, who took the helm in March 2020 when YES Bank was in freefall following a severe financial crisis, and spent six years painstakingly stabilising the institution, rebuilding governance and restoring operational scale. Gandhi was generous: “The bank remains indebted to Prashant Kumar, who is responsible for much of what a strong financial powerhouse YES Bank is today.”
Tonse, for his part, struck a purposeful note. “Together with the board and my colleagues, I remain deeply committed to creating long-term value for all our stakeholders,” he said, pledging to build on Kumar’s foundation guided by his personal motto: Make A Difference.
Beyond the balance sheet, Tonse played cricket at college and club level and represented Karnataka in archery at the national championships — sports he credits with teaching him teamwork, situational leadership, discipline and focus. In quieter moments, he reaches for retro Kannada music, classic Hindi songs, and the crooning of Engelbert Humperdinck, Mukesh and Kishore Kumar.
YES Bank has its steady-handed rebuilder in Kumar to thank for survival. Now it has a scale-obsessed growth banker at the wheel. The next chapter starts April 6.
