Sisters in Yellow
A Novel
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • 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 have a feeling I won’t forget Hana, perpetually running up life’s down escalator, willing to try anything to scrape together a little happiness." —Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“To read her work is to feel that she is not afraid of anything at all.” —The New York Times Book Review
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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this evocative novel, Mieko Kawakami explores the fragile line between survival and self-destruction in late 20th-century Tokyo. As pandemic lockdowns loom, middle-aged Hana reads about a court case involving Kimiko Yoshikawa, accused of imprisoning and coercing a young woman. The story pulls her back to her own troubled teenage years, when Kimiko—then a friend of Hana’s neglectful mother—offered her shelter, affection, and a sense of belonging she had never known. Together, Hana and Kimiko open a small bar called Lemon, hoping to build a better life. But success proves elusive, and financial pressure soon pushes Hana toward risky and morally complicated choices. As she begins to form friendships and experience real community for the first time, her determination to secure stability threatens to undo everything she has built. We loved this revealing look at Tokyo’s underworld and the hidden costs of a society driven by image and expectation. Kawakami’s novel is both intimate and unsettling, tracing how easily good intentions can lead to dangerous compromises.
