Mieko Kawakami is one of the most critically acclaimed contemporary authors on the planet and perhaps the foremost contemporary female author hailing from Japan. Born in Osaka, Kawakami made her literary debut as a poet and published her first novella, My Ego, My Teeth, and the World, in 2007. Her books, translated into over 40 languages, are known for their poetic qualities, insights into the female body, and an immersion into the themes of ethics and modern society. Starting with her win of the Akutagawa Prize for Chichi to Ran and later with the International Booker Prize for Heaven and the National Book Critics Circle Award for All the Lovers in the Night, she has broken major domestic and international barriers, all while championing feminism through her work and life. Kawakami’s further works include Breasts and Eggs and Sisters in Yellow.

Mieko Kawakami will appear live at Japan Society conversation with Professor Amanda Seaman. This conversation will go through her career with an in-depth discussion of her major themes and books. It will be followed by a signing with the author.

Book Signing

Attendees of Japan Society’s Mieko Kawakami talk will be able to purchase copies of her books at the event or bring books from home for a signing session following the author’s talk.

Mieko Kawakami
Mieko Kawakami is the acclaimed author of the internationally best-selling novel Breasts and Eggs, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and one of Time’s Best 10 Books of 2020. Her other novels, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd, include Heaven, shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize, and All the Lovers in the Night, a finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. In 2024, Sisters in Yellow, which was translated by Laurel Taylor and Hitomi Yoshio, won the Yomiuri Prize for Literature. Kawakami’s books, translated into over 40 languages, are known for their insights into the female body, and philosophical questions surrounding gender, class, and ethics in modern society. Born in Osaka, Kawakami lives in Tokyo, Japan.

Hitomi Yoshio
Hitomi Yoshio is the translator of Natsuko Imamura’s This Is Amiko, Do You Copy? (Pushkin Press) and co-translator of Mieko Kawakami’s Ashes of Spring (Amazon Audible) and Sisters in Yellow (Knopf). Her short story translations have appeared in Granta, The Atlantic, Freeman’s, Words without Borders, Monkey, World Literature Today, the Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories, and the Penguin Book of the International Short Story. She received her PhD in Japanese literature from Columbia University, and is professor of Global Japanese Studies at Waseda University in Tokyo.