Showing results for "Mieko Kawakami" in All Categories

Fuyuko Irie is a freelance copy editor in her mid-thirties. Working and living alone in a city where it is not easy to form new relationships, she has little regular contact with anyone other than her editor, Hijiri, a woman of the same age but with a very different disposition. When Fuyoku stops one day on a Tokyo street and notices her reflection in a storefront window, what she sees is a drab, awkward and spiritless woman who has lacked the strength to change her life and decides to do something about it.

On a hot summer’s day in a poor suburb of Tokyo we meet three women: 30-year-old Natsu, her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s teenage daughter, Midoriko. Makiko, an ageing hostess despairing the loss of her looks, has travelled to Tokyo in search of breast-enhancement surgery. She's accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently stopped speaking, finding herself unable to deal with her own changing body and her mother’s self-obsession. Her silence dominates Natsu’s rundown apartment, providing a catalyst for each woman to grapple with their own anxieties.

In Heaven, a 14-year-old boy is tormented for having a lazy eye. Instead of resisting, he chooses to suffer in silence. The only person who understands what he is going through is a female classmate, Kojima, who experiences similar treatment at the hands of her bullies. Providing each other with immeasurable consolation at a time in their lives when they need it most, the two young friends grow closer than ever. But what, ultimately, is the nature of a friendship when your shared bond is terror?

Ein Brief, den ich Ihnen geschrieben habe, als ich im Krankenhaus war – "Ao over blue". Zwei Frauen, die sich in einem Luxushotel einem Vorstellungsgespräch unterziehen, um bezahlt zu werden – "Wenn Ihre Nase nur etwas größer wäre." Eine alte Frau im Sterben und eine Haushälterin mit großem Rücken – "Vase". Ein Schriftsteller mit genau demselben Geburtsdatum wie Sie begeht Selbstmord – "Ruf mich an, wenn Sie sich einsam fühlen." Meine Freundin und ich haben uns in eine Abendschule geschlichen und nach einem wichtigen Brief gesucht – "Blue Ink".