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    Sisters in Yellow

    A Novel

    Author Mieko Kawakami
    Translated by Laurel Taylor, Hitomi Yoshio
    Ebook (EPUB)
    Knopf
    On sale Mar 17, 2026 | 448 Pages | 9780593537749
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    From Mieko Kawakami, award-winning author of Breasts and Eggs, comes a bold novel of sacrifice and the tumultuous bonds of sisterhood, set in the gritty Tokyo of the 1990s.

    “I can never forget the sense of pure astonishment I felt when I first read Mieko Kawakami.” —Haruki Murakami

    Hana has nothing – she’s fifteen years old and living in a tiny apartment in a suburb of Tokyo with her young mother, a hostess at a local dive bar. They have no money, no security. Then Kimiko appears.

    Kimiko is older, a bright light in Hana’s dark world. Together they set up Lemon, a bar that, despite its shabby setting and seedy clientele, becomes a haven for Hana. Suddenly Hana has a job she loves, friends to share her days with, and the glittering promise of money. She feels like a normal girl. She feels invincible.

    But in the narrow alleys of Sangenjaya, nothing is as it seems. Soon all of Hana’s hope, her optimism, and her drive will be pushed to the limit . . .

    A story of enduring friendship and deep betrayal, Sisters in Yellow is a masterpiece of teenage dreams and adult cruelties that confirms Mieko Kawakami as one of the great writers of her generation.
    "Kawakami unfurls a remarkable noir-tinged tale of female desperation. . . . As the story hurtles toward chilling revelations in the present, Kawakami masterfully builds tension. . . . The author scales new heights with this gripping and propulsive novel."
    —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

    "An intimate and striking novel of poverty and loneliness."
    —Book Riot

    "Kawakami’s novel is about the painful realities of a rapidly-modernizing world, the difficulty of creating community on the fringes, and the ways we struggle to care for each other and ourselves. . . . In Mieko Kawakami’s hands this is . . . a masterpiece."
    —Lit Hub

    "A pacy story of friendship, longing, and betrayal."
    —Electric Lit

    "Kawakami pairs the churn of Hana’s obsessive worries and fears with the ruthlessness of Tokyo's underworld in exacting and galvanizing detail, exposing the misogynist injustice and violence women face and the unbridgeable divide between rich and poor. Every scene in this incisive, relentless tale of survival and the stunting of lives is mesmerizing in its intensity."
    —Booklist
    © Reiko Toyama
    MIEKO KAWAKAMI is the acclaimed author of the internationally best-selling novel Breasts and Eggs, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and one of Time’s Best 10 Books of 2020. Her other novels, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd, include Heaven, shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize, and All the Lovers in the Night, a finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. In 2024, Sisters in Yellow won the Yomiuri Prize for Literature. Her books, translated into over forty languages, are known for their insights into the female body, and philosophical questions surrounding gender, class, and ethics in modern society. Born in Osaka, Kawakami lives in Tokyo, Japan. View titles by Mieko Kawakami

    About

    From Mieko Kawakami, award-winning author of Breasts and Eggs, comes a bold novel of sacrifice and the tumultuous bonds of sisterhood, set in the gritty Tokyo of the 1990s.

    “I can never forget the sense of pure astonishment I felt when I first read Mieko Kawakami.” —Haruki Murakami

    Hana has nothing – she’s fifteen years old and living in a tiny apartment in a suburb of Tokyo with her young mother, a hostess at a local dive bar. They have no money, no security. Then Kimiko appears.

    Kimiko is older, a bright light in Hana’s dark world. Together they set up Lemon, a bar that, despite its shabby setting and seedy clientele, becomes a haven for Hana. Suddenly Hana has a job she loves, friends to share her days with, and the glittering promise of money. She feels like a normal girl. She feels invincible.

    But in the narrow alleys of Sangenjaya, nothing is as it seems. Soon all of Hana’s hope, her optimism, and her drive will be pushed to the limit . . .

    A story of enduring friendship and deep betrayal, Sisters in Yellow is a masterpiece of teenage dreams and adult cruelties that confirms Mieko Kawakami as one of the great writers of her generation.

    Reviews

    "Kawakami unfurls a remarkable noir-tinged tale of female desperation. . . . As the story hurtles toward chilling revelations in the present, Kawakami masterfully builds tension. . . . The author scales new heights with this gripping and propulsive novel."
    —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

    "An intimate and striking novel of poverty and loneliness."
    —Book Riot

    "Kawakami’s novel is about the painful realities of a rapidly-modernizing world, the difficulty of creating community on the fringes, and the ways we struggle to care for each other and ourselves. . . . In Mieko Kawakami’s hands this is . . . a masterpiece."
    —Lit Hub

    "A pacy story of friendship, longing, and betrayal."
    —Electric Lit

    "Kawakami pairs the churn of Hana’s obsessive worries and fears with the ruthlessness of Tokyo's underworld in exacting and galvanizing detail, exposing the misogynist injustice and violence women face and the unbridgeable divide between rich and poor. Every scene in this incisive, relentless tale of survival and the stunting of lives is mesmerizing in its intensity."
    —Booklist

    Author

    © Reiko Toyama
    MIEKO KAWAKAMI is the acclaimed author of the internationally best-selling novel Breasts and Eggs, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and one of Time’s Best 10 Books of 2020. Her other novels, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd, include Heaven, shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize, and All the Lovers in the Night, a finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. In 2024, Sisters in Yellow won the Yomiuri Prize for Literature. Her books, translated into over forty languages, are known for their insights into the female body, and philosophical questions surrounding gender, class, and ethics in modern society. Born in Osaka, Kawakami lives in Tokyo, Japan. View titles by Mieko Kawakami

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