Sisters in Yellow

The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller

'I can never forget the sense of pure astonishment I felt when I first read Mieko Kawakami'
– Haruki Murakami

'The most exciting Japanese novelist at work today'
– The Times

A heart-stopping story of teenage girls on the brink in 1990s Tokyo from the International Booker Prize-Shortlisted author of Heaven and Breasts and Eggs.

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.

'Relentlessly riveting . . . My heart felt very tender reading this'
– Frances Cha, author of If I Had Your Face

Readers love Sisters in Yellow:

'My new favourite book of ALL TIME. The ending absolutely destroyed me.'

'A powerful, emotionally charged exploration of friendship, survival and the quiet brutality of inequality'

'Mieko Kawakami doesn't need a high-speed chase to create tension; she lets a heavy, unsettling mood seep into the floorboards'

'Confirms Kawakami’s place as one of the most vital voices in contemporary literature'

'The character building is second to none . . . Mieko Kawakami is a generational talent'

'This is Kawakami at her best. Not for a second does the pace let up.'