Sisters in Yellow

The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller 'The most exciting Japanese novelist at work today' - The Times 'I can never forget the sense of pure astonishment I felt when I first read Mieko Kawakami' - Haruki Murakami A heart-stopping story of teenage girls on the brink in 1990s Tokyo from the International Booker Prize-shortlisted author of HEAVEN and BREASTS AND EGGS Hana has nothing but she's hopeful. She's fifteen years old. She lives in a tiny apartment in Tokyo with her mother. They have no money, no security. Then the enigmatic Kimiko appears. She offers Hana a way out. Together they set up Lemon, a shabby bar that becomes their haven. Suddenly Hana has a job she loves and friends to share her days with, but the glittering promise of money soon gives way to a dangerous world. Trapped between her own paranoia and the violence of the city's dark underbelly, Hana is forced to make choices that will echo throughout the decades to come. A masterpiece of teenage dreams and adult cruelties, Sisters in Yellow confirms Mieko Kawakami as one of the great writers of her generation. 'Relentlessly riveting . . . My heart felt very tender reading this' - Frances Cha, author of If I Had Your Face Readers love Sisters in Yellow: 'My new favourite book of ALL TIME. The ending absolutely destroyed me.' 'A powerful, emotionally charged exploration of friendship, survival and the quiet brutality of inequality' 'Mieko Kawakami doesn't need a high-speed chase to create tension; she lets a heavy, unsettling mood seep into the floorboards' 'Confirms Kawakami's place as one of the most vital voices in contemporary literature' 'The character building is second to none . . . Mieko Kawakami is a generational talent' 'This is Kawakami at her best. Not for a second does the pace let up.'

Mieko Kawakami is the author of the internationally bestselling novel Breasts and Eggs, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and one of TIME's Best 10 Books of 2020, and the highly-acclaimed Heaven, her second novel to be translated and published in English, which Oprah Daily described as written "with jagged, visceral beauty." Born in Osaka, Japan, Kawakami made her literary debut as a poet in 2006, and in 2007 published her first novella, My Ego, My Teeth, and the World. Known for their poetic qualities, their insights into the female body, and their preoccupation with ethics and modern society, her books have been translated into over twenty languages. Kawakami's literary awards include the Akutagawa Prize, the Tanizaki Prize, and the Murasaki Shikibu Prize. She lives in Tokyo, Japan.