The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura, translated by Lucy North (Faber & Faber)

Natsuko Imamura is a Japanese writer who has been nominated three times for the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s most prestigious literary award. She won the award in 2019 for novel むらさきのスカートの女 (Murasaki no Skirt no Onna). 

The Woman in the Purple Skirt is the English translation of her Akutagawa Prize winner. It was published in English in 2022 by Lucy North, a British translator of Japanese fiction and nonfiction who also has a PhD in modern Japanese literature from Harvard University. 

The narrator of the story lives near the woman in a purple skirt. The woman being watched always wears a purple skirt which is how she got her name. The narrator has already found out where the woman in the purple skirt lives. She has also kept a diary of the woman in the purple skirt’s schedule; when she works, when she doesn’t work. Where she goes, where she sits in the local park. The woman tells herself she wants to get to know the woman in the purple skirt. She wants to become friends with her. 

Why the woman in the yellow cardigan wants to get to know the woman in the purple skirt is a mystery. It’s a mystery to herself as well. She thinks it would be strange to just go up to the woman and say, “I want to be friends with you”. She just wants to talk to her and tells herself, “it’s not as if I’m trying to make a pass at her”. 

The woman in the purple skirt doesn’t know she’s being watched. Even if she did, it appears that she does not give a care in the world. The narrator calls herself the woman in the yellow cardigan. As the woman in the yellow cardigan realizes that the woman in the purple skirt has been out of a job for a few months, she leaves a job offer magazine where the woman in the purple skirt will surely find it. 

A few days later, the woman in the purple skirt is hired by a company. lt happens to be the same hotel where the woman in the yellow cardigan works. The narrator continues to watch the woman in the purple skirt throughout her entire training period but has yet to introduce herself. 

The narrator almost didn’t recognize the woman in the purple skirt because she came to work wearing different clothes. At first the new employee was very timid and her voice wasn’t loud enough to satisfy the Hotel Manager. However, as the months pass, she becomes quite adept at her job. Her co-workers start talking to her more frequently and she is often invited out for lunch or for drinks after work.

The narrator has yet to introduce herself so she could become friends with the woman she formerly called the woman in the purple skirt. The woman was really good at her job and she was also very friendly with the Hotel Manager. Soon, rumors spread that she is seeing the Hotel Manager who is a married man. The other workers are also surprised at the speed of her promotion and also find out she is getting paid more than they are. 

Her co-workers who were formerly kind to her now began to ignore her and when the head of the Housekeeping Department suggested that some of the hotel’s employees were taking towels and other amenities from the rooms, the first one to be blamed was the former the newest employee. After being accused of stealing by the others, she left the hotel in tears.

The narrator goes to the woman’s apartment to see if she is okay. She notices a familiar car in front of the apartment as well. It is the Hotel Manager. The woman lives on the second floor of a pretty dilapidated building and when she and the Hotel Manager have a scuffle, the Hotel Manager falls down the stairs and looks to be dead. 

The narrator finally rushes to the woman and tells her she will take care of everything. She believes it was fate that she can help the woman leave this town. She would quit the hotel herself and they could become traveling companions. The narrator plans everything out very carefully, leaves a note and some money for the woman to leave first, saying she would meet her later. But not everything turns out as planned.

Imamura’s story reads like a thriller but the protagonist doesn’t seem to want to hurt the person she’s been stalking. It is one of the creepiest horror stories without any blood that you may ever read. It is up to the reader to decide what happened to the woman in the purple skirt. It’s also hard to consider the narrator as a villain as she doesn’t want to harm her obsession. She only wants to become friends with her. Yes, you should beware of strangers who want to become your friend. ~Ernie Hoyt