Breasts and Eggs
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About this ebook
The story of three women by a writer hailed by Haruki Murakami as Japan’s most important contemporary novelist, WINNER OF THE AKUTAGAWA PRIZE.
“Breasts and Eggs took my breath away.”—HARUKI MURAKAMI
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2020
Vogue・Thrillist・The Millions・ Literary Hub・Now Toronto・Metropolis Japan
Challenging every preconception about storytelling and prose style, mixing wry humor and riveting emotional depth, Kawakami is today one of Japan’s most important and best-selling writers. She exploded onto the cultural scene first as a musician, then as a poet and popular blogger, and is now an award-winning novelist.
Breasts and Eggs paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road to finding peace and futures they can truly call their own.
It tells the story of three women: the thirty-year-old Natsu, her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s daughter, Midoriko. Makiko has traveled to Tokyo in search of an affordable breast enhancement procedure. She is accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently grown silent, finding herself unable to voice the vague yet overwhelming pressures associated with growing up. Her silence proves a catalyst for each woman to confront her fears and frustrations.
On another hot summer’s day ten years later, Natsu, on a journey back to her native city, struggles with her own indeterminate identity as she confronts anxieties about growing old alone and childless.
Kawakami’s first novella My Ego, My Teeth, and the World, published in Japan in 2007, was awarded the Tsubouchi Shoyo Prize for Young Emerging Writers. The following year, she published Breasts and Eggs as a short novella, and won praise from Yoko Ogawa and Haruki Murakami. The newly expanded Breasts and Eggs, already hailed as a “feminist masterwork” (Entertainment Weekly), is her first novel to be published in English.
“Mieko Kawakami’s first full-scale novel to be translated from Japanese into English reveals what a Catherine Wheel of talent she is, how unplaceable and unique. How forceful. […] The way she moves among her characters here will make clear why Breasts and Eggs is the Makioka Sisters of its time.”—John Freeman in Literary Hub
“Mieko Kawakami lobbed a literary grenade into the fusty, male-dominated world of Japanese fiction with Breasts and Eggs.”—The Economist
Mieko Kawakami
Mieko Kawakami is the author of the internationally bestselling novel Breasts and Eggs, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and one of TIME’s Best 10 Books of 2020, and the highly-acclaimed Heaven, her second novel to be translated and published in English, which Oprah Daily described as written “with jagged, visceral beauty.” Born in Osaka, Japan, Kawakami made her literary debut as a poet in 2006, and in 2007 published her first novella, My Ego, My Teeth, and the World. Known for their poetic qualities, their insights into the female body, and their preoccupation with ethics and modern society, her books have been translated into over twenty languages. Kawakami’s literary awards include the Akutagawa Prize, the Tanizaki Prize, and the Murasaki Shikibu Prize. She lives in Tokyo, Japan.
Read more from Mieko Kawakami
Breasts and Eggs: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heaven: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Lovers in the Night Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for Breasts and Eggs
31 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Amazing read! A deep and impressive immersion in Japanese culture and the clash between tradition, science and the wants and needs of humans.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Absolutely stunning. Easily the second best book I've ever had the pleasure of reading. (The first remains "The Girl With the Louding Voice" by Abi Dare.)