Breasts and Eggs: A Novel

Breasts and Eggs follows three women across two interconnected narratives. In the first, Makiko travels from Osaka to Tokyo with her daughter Midoriko to visit her sister Natsu. Midoriko has become withdrawn, unable to articulate the pressures of adolescence. Through Natsu's perspective—a thirty-year-old aspiring writer marked by childhood hardships—the story unfolds over several days in a working-class Tokyo neighborhood. Midoriko's silence becomes a catalyst for each woman to face her fears and family secrets. Eight years later, Natsu returns to her native city and grapples with questions of identity, aging alone, and childlessness. The novel weaves together stylistic inventiveness, humor, and emotional depth to explore contemporary womanhood in Japan, tracing three women's intimate journeys toward finding peace and self-determined futures. Kawakami won the Akutagawa Prize for this work.