Breasts and Eggs: Mieko Kawakami

A beguiling novel about three women struggling to determine their own lives in contemporary Tokyo.

On a hot summer`s day in a poor suburb of Tokyo we meet three women: thirty-year-old Natsuko, her older sister Makiko, and Makiko`s teenage daughter Midoriko. Makiko, an ageing hostess despairing the loss of her looks, has travelled to Tokyo in search of breast enhancement surgery. She`s accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently stopped speaking, finding herself unable to deal with her own changing body and her mother`s self-obsession. Her silence dominates Natsuko`s rundown apartment, providing a catalyst for each woman to grapple with their own anxieties and their relationships with one another.

Eight years later, we meet Natsuko again. She is now a writer and finds herself on a journey back to her native city, returning to memories of that summer and her family`s past as she faces her own uncertain future.

In Breasts and Eggs Mieko Kawakami paints a radical and intimate portrait of contemporary working class womanhood in Japan, recounting the heartbreaking journeys of three women in a society where the odds are stacked against them. This is an unforgettable English language debut from a major new international talent.