Breasts and Eggs
A Tokyo bar worker and her sister confront questions of the female body, reproductive choice, and working-class life with Kawakami's characteristic combination of realism and philosophical seriousness. Her most ambitious novel and one of the decade's best Japanese translations.
Two books share one cover here. Part One began as a tight 2008 novella; Part Two, added a decade later and twice as long, drifts into position papers on donor conception until one reader says it “beats donor conception to absolute death”. A widely read critic flags one scene involving a trans character as gratuitous rather than load-bearing; a reader put it more bluntly, calling it “that unnecessary transphobic scene which added nothing”. Multiple readers report quitting, one writing she “dropped it after about 25% of the way in”, and say the hype outran the book, arriving “despite ravishing reviews about this book”.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
