Sisters in Yellow - A Novel

Rising star Mieko Kawakami reaches new heights in this pacy, thrilling novel, a Japanese All of them are fleeing something. Growing up without a father, Hana’s tired of the pity in her classmates’ eyes, and;finds a flashier mother figure;in Kimiko. Kimiko is older than Hana''s mother but seems much younger, chatting easily about school and boys and wanting a better life.;Fate throws them together with two more young women--bruised but not broken by life. Together the four set out to remake their;lives, fighting predatory lenders, organized criminals, and plain bad luck as they open a bar called Lemon.; Keeping the business going, and trying to take care of each other, forms the core of this enrapturing novel. It is a story of startling reversals and vivid portraits of the matriarchy of Tokyo nightlife and its adjacent criminal underclasses. From the bar owners to the aging hostesses to the young street touts coaxing people off the street to places like Lemon, everyone wants a chance at renewal, but can everyone get it?; Narrated by Hana in Kawakami’s trademark evocatively poetic style and paced like a noir,

About the author

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.

LAUREL TAYLOR is a translator, poet, and researcher. She has translated works by Kaori Fujino, Minae Mizumura, Shibasaki Tomoka, and Aoko Matsudo, among others.

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.

Summary

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

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.

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.

Product details

• Authors: Mieko Kawakami, Laurel Taylor, Hitomi Yoshio
• Publisher: Knopf
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 31.03.2026
• EAN: 9780593537732
• ISBN: 978-0-593-53773-2
• No. of pages: 448
• Dimensions: 156 mm x 235 mm x 29 mm
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature