This compelling novel follows three women navigating identity and transformation in modern Tokyo. Natsuko, a thirty-year-old woman, finds herself entangled with her sister Makiko—a former hostess pursuing cosmetic surgery to reclaim her fading youth—and Makiko's silent teenage daughter Midoriko, who has withdrawn from speech as she grapples with her own body and her mother's relentless self-reinvention. Kawakami crafts an intimate portrait of desire, family tension, and the pressures women face to conform. Hailed by Haruki Murakami as "breathtaking," this New York Times Notable Book and Elena Ferrante favourite explores what it truly means to reclaim agency in a society that constantly defines women by
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. Translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd. 'Bold, modern and surprising' – An Yu, author of Braised Pork'Incredible and propulsive' – Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times