A Conversation with Emi Yagi about When the Museum is Closed

Images of When the Museum is Closed by Penguin Random House

In July 2025, I had the great joy of meeting with author Emi Yagi in Tokyo to chat about her second novel When the Museum is Closed, in a string of fortunate events that began with the opportunity to translate the work into English.

Recently, I wrote a short essay for the Vintage newsletter and website that begins:

On a muggy Friday afternoon in early July, I am on my way to meet author Emi Yagi at her publisher’s office in Tokyo to discuss her new novel, When the Museum is Closed. The stifling mix of rain and humidity has rendered the Southern Californian in me useless, as I do not know whether to don a raincoat or shed myself of the sticky discomfort.

And now, the interview...

***

Yuki Tejima (YT): Congratulations on the English publication of When the Museum is Closed!

Emi Yagi (EY): Congratulations to you! Thank you for translating the book!

YT: You wrote in an essay that you're thrilled to see the covers of your books in various languages. What are your thoughts on the new UK edition?

EY: I love that the face of the Venus statue isn't visible, which allows the reader to imagine. Most Venus statues wear these serene expressions, even when they might not always be calm on the inside. Also, the details, like the frozen foods on the inside back cover. A lot of thought has been put into the design.

Image of When the Museum is Closed from Penguin Random House

YT: It’s stunning. This novel is set in a museum. Are you a big fan of art in general?

EY: I do enjoy art, but this novel originated from a different place. I was riding an escalator in a department store and saw an undressed mannequin, and I thought, I wonder what that mannequin would say to me right now. I started to think about the “nude statue” and whether there was a story there.

YT: That was the catalyst!

EY: Around the same time, I was reading a book called Overcoming/Sculpting Modernity by Japanese critic and scholar Nodoka Odawara, who is a sculptor herself. She wrote that while the nude sculpture exists as an art genre, it's rare for them to be on display in public places. But in Japan, nude female statues are commonly seen in open, public spaces. I was thinking about this as I went to the library to write my novel, and there was a naked female statue at the entrance titled Freedom. Statues of men, like Saigo Takamori in Ueno or Shigenobu Okuma at Waseda University, are clothed and named, but for some reason, women are naked and nameless.

YT: So true.

EY: I couldn’t figure out how the statue at the library represented freedom. What was apparent was that she was a woman and naked. Many of these statues have abstract titles like Peace and Freedom, but I've never known why they need a woman's naked body to convey the concepts. That’s when I started to think that my new novel would have a feminist angle.

YT: You don’t have a theme in mind when you start writing?

EY: I don’t. I just thought it’d be fun to be able to talk to a statue.

YT: I love it.

EY: When I was writing my previous book, Diary of a Void, I didn’t go into it thinking, I'm going to write a feminist novel. I simply thought, What would happen if a woman lied about being pregnant? and as I wrote, the feminist theme emerged. Though writing about a young woman in Japanese society today without incorporating any feminist elements would be unnatural.

YT: I remember being on the edge of my seat the first time I read Diary of a Void, wondering what was going happen to the woman who lied at the office about being pregnant. I was seeing and hearing reactions from English readers on social media and podcasts, saying, "Where could she possibly go with this?!" and "The ending is crazy!" Did you know from the start how Diary of a Void would end?

EY: I didn't have a specific plan, but I knew it wasn’t going to be about whether or not the protagonist Shibata's lie would be exposed. That wouldn’t be very interesting. When I was writing Diary, I had a full-time job, which meant I was an employee from morning until evening, then I’d go home and be a wife. I was having trouble finding a place to write, so I went to the library on my way home. As I wrote, I was surprised by the emergence of a voice that was neither employee nor wife. If the protagonist of Diary is 'pregnant' with a lie instead of a baby, I thought that I too could think of myself that way. The completion of my novel would be the completion of a lie, in a sense, and I started to think about how I could protect the protagonist’s lie. I wrote with the hope that readers would think about the act of lying itself, rather than reveal whether she was found out in the end.

YT: Do you sketch out a plot before you begin?

EY: I never do. With Diary, I was researching what happens when a woman becomes pregnant, just like the protagonist does. What does twelve weeks look like? A diaper manufacturer in Japan had made a tracking app, which I checked regularly. I wrote after work each day, knowing what would happen two lines later, but not two pages later.

YT: Were you writing in secret?

EY: I was.

YT: English readers loved your first novel, and expectations for your second book are high. Did you get a sense of your rapidly-expanding readership outside of Japan?

EY: I actually had no idea. But the English edition of Kushin Techo (Diary of a Void) came out at a very good time for me personally. I was writing my second novel at the time and getting a bit discouraged with it, thinking, who knows how many people will even read this in Japan, let alone overseas? But then I remembered Diary was coming out in English and did a quick online search, and the first thing that came up was a review in the New Yorker.

YT: Remarkable.

EY: I was stunned. Knowing that my first work was being read overseas gave me the motivation to finish my second one.

YT: The New Yorker as your first review. Not bad at all.

EY: I couldn’t believe it either.

YT: Because David Boyd and Lucy North (the co-translators of Diary of a Void) did such a wonderful job, it was terrifying to follow in their footsteps with the second book. I thought, “Is Yagi-san going to be okay with this unknown translator working on her next book?”

EY: Really? (laughs) 

YT: I’ve been able to relax slightly now that the book is out, but the Emi Yagi brand is no small thing.

EY: Is it really? I didn't feel it at all. When I went on a UK author tour two years ago for the first book, I was surprised and moved that people were actually reading my work.

YT: Do you feel a difference in how English and Japanese readers approach your work?

EY: I think Japanese readers sometimes have a harsher take on the book. For many, it seems, whether they get a story or not is a big factor. Imagining myself as the reader, I think I'd enjoy pondering whether the protagonist is pregnant or not, but some people were irritated that it wasn’t clear. I don't know about education systems around the world, but in Japan, we grow up having to answer test questions like, “What is the theme of this story?” and “What is the author’s intention?” Which makes people think that every story has to have an answer. But the English readers I met would say to me, “We discussed this in book club and everyone drew a different conclusion!” or “We enjoyed it because there was no clear-cut answer!” Which was wonderful to hear.

The original version of When the Museum is Closed

YT: When the Museum is Closed also alternates between the real and the imaginary. Does your imagination take you to wild places on any given day, or do these scenes come to you when you inhabit the main character Rika’s head?

EY: I do tend to fantasize and daydream a lot, though I don’t put those fantasies into my novels necessarily. I think it’s more like, I put myself in Rika's shoes and think along with her.

YT: I love the dream sequence with the thread and needles, and the scene where everyone is frozen on display in the mansion. And the hilarious beauty salon scene, which isn't a dream. That scene was so much fun to translate. I kept laughing out loud as I translated.

EY: The beautician. (laughs)

YT: The beautician! There were many scenes like that, where I wondered, Is this real? Or is this Rika's imagination? What role do dreams and fantasies play for Rika?

EY: I don’t go into a chapter thinking, I will write a make-believe scene now. I just write down what the protagonist is going through, which might remind me of a certain metaphor, and my imagination takes over from there. I let the story lead.

YT: Ah.

EY: With the raincoat, for example, I didn’t intend for it to be a metaphor for a specific psychological state. I was writing about how we sometimes sweat from anxiety when talking to people, and how uncomfortable that feels, and the raincoat popped into my head. The raincoat was a metaphor at first, but then I started to think, in the case of this protagonist, I think she’s wearing an actual coat.

YT: Wow. I related instantly to that raincoat. I was painfully shy as a child, and I don't think I spoke up once in class in my six years of elementary school. When you’re as quiet as I was, people kind of forget you exist. Or it felt like that anyway. So the scene in the elementary school classroom when Rika notices her raincoat for the first time resonated with me. I've never gone to school in Japan, but I’m sure children and adults all over the world know that feeling of 'wearing a raincoat' that no one else can see, sweating, stressing about the odor, feeling like their throat is tightening, worrying about tripping over an invisible hem. All of which makes us act awkwardly.

EY: Thank you. That’s so moving to hear.

YT: How conscious were you of Japanese society, like Japanese schools, children, and communication, as you wrote?

EY: I wasn't thinking, I'll make this story about Japan, but at the same time, I wanted to avoid an entirely fantastical setting. A novel by Yoko Ogawa, for example, might be set in Japan, but if someone told me it was set in France, I'd say, Yes, I can see that. And if someone said it was set in Namibia, I'd say, Yes, I believe that too. People can live in the real world while also inhabiting a space that isn’t really a place, if that makes sense. So I wasn't thinking specifically about Japan, though I do think the protagonist is someone who might be overlooked in Japan, someone without much of a presence.

YT: Um-hmm.

EY: But that doesn’t mean people like her don’t have a rich inner world. They might be experiencing things others could never imagine. I hope to be that kind of person myself.

YT: Were you a child who spoke your mind?

EY: I was quiet and well-behaved, but I had a lot of questions. In math class, we learn that 1+1=2, right? But this one book is different from that one book, and a Hello Kitty pencil is not the same as a Pochacco pencil. But if I didn’t say, “The answer is 2,” I'd get the test question wrong. So I did what was expected.

YT: Did you ever vocalize your questions?

EY: I thought I would be treated as a weird child if I did, so I didn't say much.

YT: I know the feeling. Did you want to become a novelist back then?

EY: No, I don’t think I thought that at the time.

YT: Did working for a publisher -- your full-time job while you were writing Diary -- and working with words inspire you to write your own stories?

EY: Yes. I worked in magazines. And the thing with magazines is that the pages are limited, so we’re always looking for ways to introduce things in straight-forward, uncomplicated ways. Short, bright, easy-to-understand topics. But as I conducted interviews, I found that most things weren't simple, couldn't be summarized briefly, and weren't always happy and bright. When you’re introducing someone's entire life in four or eight pages, you have to cut a lot out, especially things that might be contradictory, which is what makes a person interesting. I like that novels can be slower, and it's okay to take time arriving at a conclusion.

YT: Very true. With this book, there are so many aspects that might speak to you. Some readers might focus on the relationship between Rika and Venus, others on the question of freedom, others on the difficulty to communicate, and being misunderstood. As I translated the book, for example, I thought, I wonder what the other goddesses in the gallery are thinking, and Who is this Hashibami curator person, and what has his life been like?

EY: In early drafts, I do add all kinds of elements, then cut things out when the story becomes too bloated. But I think I left a lot in this time.

YT: Were there things you didn't struggle with in the first book that became difficult in the second?

EY: I was nervous thinking that this book might actually be read. I write believing that I don’t need to be understood by everyone, but I still found myself wondering if people would relate to this story at all. At the same time, if the idea of a woman talking to a statue turns someone off, I thought, maybe they would think it wasn't for them and avoid the book altogether, so I didn’t need to worry. I wrote the book thinking, You are reading an absurd story about events that do not happen in real-life. Are we okay with this?

YT: The story can’t happen in real-life, but you also didn't want to make it a fantasy.

EY: Right, I wanted it to have the feel of a world that might exist. A world that someone, somewhere, might be experiencing. At first, I wrote my protagonist as a graduate student who speaks Latin, but something didn’t feel right. I figured people would dismiss her as, “Oh, she’s  just a snobby intellectual." I wanted to make this a story about someone more relatable. And because she wears a raincoat, I thought, oh, she could work in a freezer warehouse.

YT: A very grounded part-time job.

EY: Right. I think I wrote the first draft in about two months.

YT: Two months!

EY: But I spent a year and a half revising. I felt I had the main storyline, but it was still too fantastical. The story was going to be strange whether she was a grad student or warehouse worker, with her talking to a statue and all, but I also wanted it to have a realistic urgency. I like stories that are strange but have a sense of urgency and connection to the real world.

YT: Did anything change in your writing knowing it would be read outside of Japan?

EY: My style may not have changed very much, but knowing people from various countries might read it, I did think about movies outside of Japanese culture. The Korean movie The Handmaiden, for example, about a wealthy young woman who is being abused. A young woman is hired as a handmaiden, though she is actually a con artist, and they fall in love. And the maid helps her out of her situation. I also thought about the movie Carol with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, about a wealthy woman who appears to have everything but is deeply unhappy. She meets Mara’s character, an aspiring photographer who is a bit timid. In terms of my novel, I think the Venus sculpture would be Cate Blanchett’s character, and the protagonist Rika would be Rooney Mara's character. Having those images in my head gives me inspiration and momentum to write.

YT: You said that you wrote this book at the library after your 9-to-5 job?

EY: That's right. It was during the pandemic, and it was tough because the libraries closed early.

YT: You don't write at home?

EY: I was working remotely then, and it was hard to write my novel in the same spot I’d just been working.

YT: There’s Emi Yagi the company employee, and Emi Yagi the novelist. Is it difficult to switch between the two?

EY: I don't think of them as separate personalities, since I incorporate some of the frustrations from work into my novels. But I do use a different part of my brain, one that isn't focused on being easy to understand.

YT: In translating this novel, I felt something loosen in my mind as I worked. Like a freeing, in a sense.

EY: Freeing?

YT: I think every translator has a writing style that they click with, and I truly felt this book. I would read my own translation and burst out laughing.

EY: That's wonderful. (laughs)

YT: I felt like I was allowed to experiment. Not experiment in the sense of changing the content, of course, but because the Japanese was so original and offbeat, the English had to be just as punchy and zany, or it wouldn't be the Yagi voice that people love. I had so much fun with it.

EY: Thank you! The first novel was set in an office and had a lot of 'that's so true' moments, whereas the second is less grounded in everyday life. But the voice that narrates isn't surprised by anything that happens, no matter how strange.

YT: It’s that calm, deadpan tone that makes you laugh.

EY: I took inspiration from the writing of Carmen Maria Machado.

YT: Ah, yes!

EY: In Machado's Her Body and Other Parties, there's a story where a woman's body gradually disappears. But it’s very much of the real world and not written as a fantasy. She writes about the surreal in a calm, astute voice. As I read her stories, I started to think, This could happen.

YT: Right. Rika says and does things that others might view as strange, but she’s only doing what's natural for her.

Yagi: That's right. If she burst out laughing about the things she did and thought, the reader would lose interest. It might be similar to Natsuko Imamura's writing, in a way.

YT: Yes!

EY: In Imamura's works, the protagonist is never surprised about her behavior, which allows the reader to be continuously shocked.

YT: Exactly. The Woman in the Purple Skirt is phenomenal. (The English version is translated by Lucy North.) We read the book thinking, What is the protagonist doing?

EY: Right. In my novels too, we take over for the protagonist and experience the emotions in her place. The protagonist is just trying to get through her day, and she doesn’t have the time or luxury to be surprised.

YT: What I find incredible about Japanese people, not just Rika, is that their expressions never change, when inside, they could be on fire. I get nervous sometimes because I don’t know what everyone around me is thinking, when they all seem to be communicating on a telepathic level. Where I’m from, it’s easy to know what a person is feeling because it’s written all over their faces. I’m generalizing, of course.

EY: I think I write novels because there are things I don't or can’t say out loud. At work, I’ll talk and complain with my coworkers every day, but we can't ever completely understand each other. And when I go home, my husband doesn’t need to hear about everything at work. But just because I don't express the words doesn't mean they don't exist. The words I choose not to say, or can’t say, leave a stronger impression in my mind. I think my novel contains emotions that I couldn't fully resolve in real life.

YT: Are people who know you in real life surprised by your novels?

EY: They are! My colleagues say, "I didn’t know you thought that!" And I'd think, “Because it's not related to work."

YT: English readers don't know Emi Yagi, the employee. They only know Emi Yagi, the wildly imaginative mind, and they expect everything that comes out of your mouth to be wildly imaginative as well.

EY: I always worry at events that people will be disappointed when they actually hear me speak. Because really, I’m so ordinary.

YT: I doubt that. (laughs) 

EY: There are things I think but can't articulate, or things I’ll think about later and go, That was a weird thing for me to say. In that way, I do think my novels are closer to my true feelings.

YT: Is the novel an escape, in a way, from everyday life and society?

EY: It is. I think to myself, I’ll let this go for now, but I’m putting you in my novel. (laughs) I do think both are necessary. Dealing directly with someone who is clearly hurting others, but also, when you know they won't listen to anything you say, there's a way to fight that isn't about having a direct conversation.

YT: Is Rika fighting anyone or anything in the novel?

EY: She’s not fighting a specific person, except for Hashibami at the end. But when she’s getting forced to take over people’s shifts at the warehouse, for example, she has to be imagining there are other ways to exist in this world.

YT: Right.

EY: I think about this often, how writing about a 'different way of being' can be a form of resistance. Of course, it would be great if I could fight directly, but I'm terrible at confrontations. But I often write thinking, Not everyone exists for your convenience! You can't step all over everyone.

YT: That explains why Rika struck me as a strong personality, though she doesn't assert herself in real life, taking on shifts others avoid, doing whatever Seriko says. (laughs)

EY: (laughs)

YT: But her world is unshakable, in a way. Does it just seem that way because we’re in her head?

EY: When it comes to love stories, a common premise, at least in Japan, is for a male protagonist to meet a bright, happy heroine who understands and accepts him for who he is, and helps him to become a better person. I didn't want that. The more Rika and Venus talk to one another, the more they realize they will never understand each other fully. But instead of being discouraged, Rika starts to think about how they can be together without understanding each other 100%. They can still go to a better place together. I think accepting that you can be with someone knowing you will never understand them is, in a sense, about accepting your own loneliness. The opposite of loneliness isn't about 'being un-lonely.' It's about being able to walk with someone even if the loneliness doesn’t go away.

YT: It’s okay to continue feeling lonely.

EY: I think so. The closer Rika and Venus become, the more they realize they are completely different existences. They can't become one, but they can think about how to live together without becoming Hashibami, the curator of the museum.

YT: I understood Hashibami to be a representation of the patriarchy, but is there a reason you made him a young, beautiful man?

EY: I thought he would be too obvious a symbol of patriarchy if I made him an old man. Like Venus, I wanted to write him as a being who remains unchanged and beautiful over the years.

YT: He is human, isn't he?

EY: Yes, he's human, but I did wonder how long he’d been living in the museum, and how old he was. I have no idea. (laughs)

YT: I wondered if he was a ghost.

EY: He does say he's never left the museum.

YT: You don't particularly feel a need to answer those questions to tell the story?

EY: I don't. When I wrote his character, I thought, there are people like him in the world. People who are afraid of change. People who want to keep the same systems in place forever. But it’s impossible to keep things exactly as they are. That's why there are museum jobs to preserve things that would otherwise deteriorate. In human relationships, it's not possible to keep someone from changing. In portraying a person who is afraid of change, I had the idea to make him eternally young and beautiful.

YT: It's also perfect that Rika is deeply uncomfortable around handsome men who 'appear to be kind.'

YT: Are you taking a break from your full-time job to write a new novel now?

EY: Yes, I am.

YT: How is the writing process compared to when you’re working a job?

EY: The ‘contamination level’ is low (laughs)... When I worked full-time, I’d be receiving messages all day, into the evening, and even as I tried to sit and imagine something for the novel, I was frequently pulled back to reality. Now that I’m free of those distractions, I do think it’s easier to focus on the novel, though living in your head all day isn't necessarily a fun thing. When I was writing in the time and space between the office and house, it felt like a breath of fresh air. But when you’re given permission to breathe fresh air all day long, it doesn’t feel so fresh.

YT: And that’s why we need to break up the pace by doing the laundry, for example.

EY: By doing laundry. (laughs)

YT: Or washing the dishes, I completely understand.

EY: When I was writing in my ‘spare time,’ it was quite enjoyable. But the level of fun has gone down, which I worry about sometimes. But a few years ago, I was speaking with a judge for an award who said that one writer found writing novels so unenjoyable that as soon as the washing machine beeped, they would race to it. That’s what happens when writing becomes your job.

YT: I find it therapeutic to chop soup ingredients into the smallest possible pieces, chopping things that don't even need to be chopped, while I organize my thoughts. Though I do believe translation is easier in that the author has already paved the way. I stress out while translating, but it's a different kind of stress from creating from scratch.

EY: It might be from scratch, but I do feel as though I’m drawn like a magnet to various ideas. I mentioned Carol earlier, but Patricia Highsmith had a great love of snails. So I looked them up and learned they have right swirls and left swirls, which I put into the novel.

YT: Do you 'catch' more things than when you’re writing a novel?

EY: I do. It really does feels more like I'm ‘catching’ things rather than creating them from nothing. How do I put it…rather than start from zero, I write the novel as though I've forgotten that Rika doesn't exist. In other words, she exists, and I’m just following her. I don’t think, What kind of apartment does Rika live in? I just follow her home.

YT: Wow.

EY: I discover her emotions as I journey with her. For example, when Rika starts to fall in love with Venus, Seriko tells her, "You look beautiful today," which affects the way Rika views the world.

YT: She's really stunned by Seriko's comment.

EY: There's a book by Yoko Ogawa called The Role of a Story (not translated into English), in which Ogawa says she thinks of writing as being in conversation with people who are dead. In other words, she is writing about events that happened long before she was born.

YT: She's tracing that path they have walked.

EY: In my case, I’m a bit closer to my protagonist in that I am often just a few steps behind them, watching what they're experiencing. And because the protagonist can't put what they’re going through into words, I do the work for them, being surprised on their behalf as I write the things down.

YT: I feel I understand Rika so well now. This has been such an illuminating conversation. I want to emphasize that there's nothing ordinary about you!

EY: Thank you!

YT: Is there anything you'd like to say directly to your English readers?

EY: Let's see...a part of me worries whether people will enjoy this odd world that is somewhere between reality and fantasy, but if anyone out there feels like they're alone or can't express themselves well, if they have those ‘unsaid words’ inside of them, I’d love for them to pick up this book.

YT: I sure do. That's wonderful.

EY: I really am uplifted by readers' thoughts and comments. At times while writing this book, I would feel discouraged and think, Does this work? Does the world need this book? Talking to a sculpture is a strange story. But I wrote Diary of a Void completely alone, before anyone knew me or my work, and it not only reached readers in Japan, but abroad as well. Which made me realize I wasn't doing it alone. Everyone lives with their own loneliness, but if anyone reads this and feels it’s not a bad thing to have things you can't say, nothing would make me happier.

YT: Thank you so much for this conversation today. It was wonderful to discuss this book with you, which I feel truly blessed to have translated.

EY: This was my first time being interviewed by my translator, and I had so much fun answering questions I’ve never been asked before. Thank you!