Kitchen

The acclaimed debut of Japan’s “master storyteller” (Chicago Tribune). 

With the publication of Kitchen, the dazzling English-language debut that is still her best-loved book, the literary world realized that Banana Yoshimoto was a young writer of enduring talent whose work has quickly earned a place among the best of contemporary Japanese literature. 

Kitchen is an enchantingly original book that juxtaposes two tales about mothers, love, tragedy, & the power of the kitchen & home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage, the heroine, is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Grieving, Mikage is taken in by her friend Yoichi & his mother (who is really his cross-dressing father) Eriko. 

As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale with the kitchen and the comforts of home at its heart. In a whimsical style that recalls the early Marguerite Duras, Kitchen & its companion story, Moonlight Shadow, are elegant tales whose seeming simplicity is the ruse of a very special writer whose voice echoes in the mind & the soul. 

“Lucid, earnest & disarming . . . [It] seizes hold of the reader’s sympathy & refuses to let go.” — Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times 

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Banana Yoshimoto has won numerous prizes in her native Japan, & her first book, Kitchen, has sold millions of copies worldwide. Her books have been translated & published in more than twenty countries. She lives in Tokyo.