Sisters in Yellow

Hana has nothing but she’s hopeful. She’s fifteen years old. She lives 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 tested 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.

MIEKO KAWAKAMI is the acclaimed author of the internationally bestselling novel Breasts and Eggs, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and one of Time’s 10 Best Fiction 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 2022 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.

LAUREL TAYLOR is a translator, poet and researcher. She has translated works by Kaori Fujino, Minae Mizumura, Tomoka Shibasaki and Aoko Matsuda, among others. Her first book of poetry, Human Construct, was published in November 2024, and her translation of Maiko Seo’s A Blessing for a Wedding is forthcoming. Taylor researches the intersections of technology and literature in the early internet age and teaches courses on translation, Japanese literature and Japanese language at the Univer- sity of Denver.

HITOMI YOSHIO is the translator of Natsuko Imamura’s This Is Amiko, Do You Copy? and the co-translator of Mieko Kawakami’s Ashes of Spring. She has also published translations of works by early twentieth century Japanese authors such as Ichiyō Higuchi and Midori Osaki. Her aca- demic work focuses on the intersection of modern and contemporary Japanese literature, gender studies and translation studies. She received her PhD from Columbia University and teaches Japanese literature at Waseda University.