A BEST BOOK OF 2020
TIME Magazine・The Atlantic・Book Riot・Electric
Literature・The New York Times (Notable Book of the Year)
The story of three women by a writer hailed by Haruki Murakami as
Japan's most important contemporary novelist, WINNER OF THE AKUTAGAWA
PRIZE.
On a sweltering summer day, Makiko travels from Osaka to Tokyo, where
her sister Natsu lives. She is in the company of her daughter, Midoriko,
who has lately grown silent, finding herself unable to voice the vague
yet overwhelming pressures associated with adolescence. The story of
these three women reunited in a working-class neighborhood of Tokyo is
told through the gaze of Natsu--thirty years old, an aspiring writer,
haunted by hardships endured in her youth. Over the course of their few
days together in the capital, Midoriko's silence will prove a catalyst
for each woman to confront her fears and family secrets.
On yet another blistering summer's day eight years later, Natsu, during
a journey back to her native city, struggles with her own indeterminate
identity as she confronts anxieties about growing old alone and
childless.
One of Japan's most important and best-selling writers, Mieko Kawakami
mixes stylistic inventiveness, wry humor, and riveting emotional depth
to tell a story of contemporary womanhood in Japan. Breasts and Eggs
recounts the intimate journeys of three women on the path to finding
peace and futures they can call their own.
"Original and deeply moving...This book is a gift."--Laura van den
Berg
