Breasts and Eggs follows the story of Midoriko, an adolescent girl who refuses to communicate with her mother except through writing, and her mother Makiko, who moves to Tokyo to receive breast implant surgery. Midoriko conveys the insecurities she has with her body as she moves into puberty through writing, while Makiko struggles with her self-image. The novel asks questions about gender norms and beauty standards, exploring what it means to be a woman in contemporary Japan today.

Meiko Kawakami (1976-) is a singer, blogger and writer from Osaka. Before her novel Breasts and Eggs won the Akutagawa Prize in 2008, she was known for her popular blog which received over 200,000 hits per day. She has repeatedly won prizes for her works, which challenge expectations both thematically and stylistically. She tackles themes from sexuality to philosophy and her characteristic writing often employs Osaka-ben, a dialect spoken in Osaka and surrounding cities, as well as incorporating poetic and experimental language.

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