Mieko Kawakami
Born in Osaka, Kawakami made her literary debut as a poet in 2006, and published her first novella, "My Ego, My Teeth, and the World", in 2007. Her writing is known for its poetic qualities and its insights into the female body, ethical questions, and the dilemmas of modern society. Her works have been translated into many languages and are available all over the world. She has received numerous prestigious literary awards in Japan for her work, including the Akutagawa Prize, the Tanizaki Prize, and the Murasaki Shikibu Prize. She lives in Tokyo, Japan. Career. Kawakami worked as  a bar hostess and bookstore clerk before embarking on a singing career. Kawakami released three albums and three singles as a singer, but quit her singing career in 2006 to focus on writing. Before winning the Akutagawa Prize in 2008 for "Chichi to ran", Kawakami was known in Japan primarily as a blogger. At its peak, her popular blog received over 200,000 hits per day. Kawakami's first full-length novel, titled "Hevun" ("Heaven"), won the 2010 Murasaki Shikibu Prize for Literature. In 2012 an English translation of her short story "March Yarn" appeared in "March was Made of Yarn , a collection of essays and stories about the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. In 2016, she was selected as Granta Best of Young Japanese Novelists 2016 for her short story Marie's Proof of Love". From 2015 to 2017, Kawakami conducted a series of interviews with Haruki Murakami, in which she notably asked him about women and sexualization in his novels. The edited volume of these interviews, titled "Mimizuku wa Tasogare ni Tobitatsu" ("Haruki Murakami: A Long, Long Interview") was published in 2017. Mieko Kawakami's novel, "Ms Ice Sandwich", made the shortlist of the 2018 edition of the Grand  Prix of Literary Associations. In 2019, Kawakami published "Natsu monogatari"(夏物語), a considerably expanded version of her novella "Chichi to ran" and received the 73rd Mainichi Publication Culture Award. In 2020, "Breasts and Eggs", English translation of "Natsu monogatari", was published by Europa Editions and has attained high acclaim. "The New York Times" ran a review by Katie Kitamura on the day of publication in which she observes, "Mieko Kawakami writes with a bracing lack of sentimentality, particularly when describing the lives of women." Writing style. Kawakami's writing often employs Osaka-ben, a distinctive Japanese dialect spoken in Osaka and  surrounding cities. She also incorporates experimental and poetic language into her short stories and novels, citing Lydia Davis and James Joyce as literary influences. Celebrated Japanese author Haruki Murakami called her his favorite young novelist and has described her writing as "ceaselessly growing and evolving."