川上未映子
Born 1976 · Japan
International Booker 2022 · Shortlist
ヘヴン · Hebun
Mieko Kawakami · 33 when first published
Novel · 192 pages · Coming of age
Translated by Sam Bett, David Boyd
AI-generated summary:A fourteen-year-old boy who is tormented and beaten by his classmates, and cannot understand why he only ever submits, receives an unsigned letter telling him: we are friends.
Warwick Prize 2021 · Shortlist
夏物語 · Natsu monogatari
Mieko Kawakami · 43 when first published
Novel · 448 pages · Family
Translated by Sam Bett, David Boyd
AI-generated summary:Natsuko, a 38-year-old novelist who grew up in Osaka's working-class backstreets and now lives in Tokyo, finds herself longing to meet a child of her own and begins to look into having one without a partner.
Akutagawa 2007 (second half) · Winner
Chichi to ran
Title translated by AI:“Breasts and Eggs”
Mieko Kawakami · 31 when first published
Novella · 138 pages · Family
AI-generated summary:For three summer days, the narrator in Tokyo hosts her older sister Makiko, a hostess from Osaka obsessed with getting breast implants, and Makiko's daughter Midoriko, who refuses to speak and talks only through her notebook.
Akutagawa 2007 (first half) · Candidate
Watakushiritsu in hā, mata wa sekai
Title translated by AI:“My Ego Ratio in Teeth, or the World”
Mieko Kawakami · 31 when first published
Novella · 133 pages
AI-generated summary:Convinced that people think not with their brains but with their teeth, specifically her own exceptionally healthy molars, a young woman becomes a dental assistant, thinks of her boyfriend Aoki and writes a diary to her unborn child.