Kitchen

A captivating double-header that propelled Yoshimoto to literary notoriety, Kitchen tells two short stories about the nature of loss and the process of grief, in sensitive, fluid prose. With piercing emotional truth, Yoshimoto illuminates the tortured lives of Mikage and Yumiko and delivers an important – and very Japanese - messages about the kindness of strangers and the will to persevere through adversity.

Kitchen juxtaposes two tales about mothers, transsexuality, bereavement, kitchens, love and tragedy in contemporary Japan. It is a startlingly original first work by Japan's brightest young literary star and is now a cult film.

When Kitchen was first published in Japan in 1987 it won two of Japan's most prestigious literary prizes, climbed its way to the top of the bestseller lists, then remained there for over a year and sold millions of copies.

Banana Yoshimoto was hailed as a young writer of great talent and great passion whose work has quickly earned a place among the best of modern literature, and has been described as 'the voice of young Japan' by the Independent on Sunday.

Translated from Japanese by Megan Backus.