Breasts and Eggs

'Breathtaking' – Haruki Murakami A New York Times 'Notable Book of 2020' and one of Elena Ferrante's 'Top 40 Books by Female Authors'

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 find 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.


'Bold, modern and surprising' – An Yu, author of Braised Pork 'Incredible and propulsive' – Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times

I can never forget the sense of pure astonishment I felt when I first read Mieko Kawakami’s novella Breasts and Eggs . . . breathtaking . . . Mieko Kawakami is always ceaselessly growing and evolving -- Haruki Murakami

Incredible -- Yoko Ogawa, author of The Memory Police

Bold, modern, and surprising -- An Yu, author of Braised Pork

It is Tokyo as it is lived in, not a film set ― New York Times

If you like Sheila Heti, you'll love Mieko Kawakami ― NPR

A dazzling intellectual thriller by a new Japanese literary star . . . stunning ― Financial Times

Breasts and Eggs is stunning - its rage, wry humour and nihilism rendered with real care. It's compelling too, and yet nearly every page gave me reason to pause, realising that some tiny stitch in the fabric of everyday life as a woman had been unceremoniously unpicked -- Olivia Sudjic, author of Sympathy

Incredible and propulsive -- Naoise Dolan

Fierce and sweet and I would like the rest of Kawakami’s work translated, please -- Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater, in The Times

Mieko Kawakami is a writer of rare candour and brilliance -- Rónán Hession, author of Leonard and Hungry Paul