Tag: Mieko Kawakami

The last in Mieko Kawakami’s main trio of works — All the Lovers in the Night evokes much of the same emotions and motifs found within her acclaimed debut Breast and Eggs, whilst also successfully mixing in the emotional messiness of her much shorter work Heaven. The story follows Fuyoko Irie, a freelance proofreader who…

A quiet commentary buried under a somewhat unhappy tone; Breasts and Eggs, which was Mieko Kawakami’s first significant literary work, stands as an interesting read for this reason. Split into two halves (separated by a decade), we follow Natsu as she becomes a budding author and attempts to wrangle with the pressures of society, work,…

As touching as it is heart-wrenching, Kawakami’s second novel, Heaven, illustrates the horrors of childhood, bullying, and our fleeting attempts to love ourselves and the families that neglect us. Kawakami toys with many facets in this relatively short novel, especially those that trouble us during our formative years, like bullying and home life. She does…