Breasts and Eggs

Mieko Kawakami · 2007 CE · Short Story · Japanese · Contemporary

A woman in Tokyo hosts her older sister Makiko, who has come from Osaka for breast enlargement, and Makiko's daughter Midoriko, who has stopped speaking and answers in a notebook. Over three days the narrator watches mother and daughter strain against each other and against their own changing bodies. Written in long unbroken Osaka-dialect sentences, it won the Akutagawa Prize and is a different book from the 2019 rewrite known in English by the same title.

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