Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. Women's Studies. Translated by Jeffrey Angles, Jen Crawford, Carol Hayes, Rina Kikuchi, You Nakai, Sawako Nakayasu. This first English-language volume from Japanese poet, performer and publisher Takako Arai collects engaging, rhythmically intense narrative poems set in the silk weaving factory where Arai grew up. FACTORY GIRLS depicts the secretive yet bold world of the women workers as well as the fate of these kinds of regional, feminine, collaborative spaces in a current-day Japan defined by such corporate and climate catastrophes as the rise of Uniqlo and the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.