Book Details

• Publisher: Picador

• Author: Mieko Kawakami

• Language: English, Japanese, German

• Edition: 2025

• ISBN: 9781529074413

• Pages: 432

• Cover: Paperback

• Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches

About the Book

“Breathtaking” – Haruki Murakami, author of Norwegian Wood

Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami is a bold and intimate exploration of womanhood in contemporary Tokyo. Acclaimed as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and one of Elena Ferrante’s Top 40 Books by Female Authors, this extraordinary novel captures the struggles, desires, and resilience of three women navigating a society where the odds are against them.

On a sweltering summer day in a poor Tokyo suburb, we meet Natsuko, her older sister Makiko, and Makiko’s teenage daughter Midoriko. Makiko, an ageing hostess desperate to preserve her fading beauty, comes to Tokyo seeking breast enhancement surgery, accompanied by Midoriko, who has fallen silent in protest against her mother’s vanity and her own adolescence. Their silence fills Natsuko’s small apartment, forcing all three women to confront the anxieties of body, identity, and family ties.

Eight years later, we return to Natsuko, now a writer, on a journey back to her hometown. Revisiting memories of that pivotal summer, she faces questions of belonging, motherhood, and her uncertain future.

With lyrical intensity and unflinching honesty, Kawakami delivers a radical portrait of working-class womanhood in Japan, weaving themes of beauty, gender, sexuality, and self-determination into a narrative that is both heartbreaking and transformative.

Praised as “bold, modern and surprising” (An Yu, author of Braised Pork) and “incredible and propulsive” (Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times), this English-language debut, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd, confirms Kawakami as one of the most vital voices in world literature today.

Shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, Breasts and Eggs is a must-read for those seeking fiction that challenges, empowers, and lingers long after the final page.