Mieko Kawakami
Photography by Reiko Toyama
Styling by Shotaro Yamaguchi
Growing up in Osaka, Japan, novelist Mieko Kawakami was the victim of a common playground prank in which boys would flip up girls’ skirts, hoping to expose their underwear. Yet, she recalls, it was equally humiliating if you weren’t one of the girls chosen. “It meant you weren’t popular,” she told the New York Times in May. “It’s a humiliation among women not to be desired by men. That’s a very strong code in Japanese society.”
It is a sentiment that Kawakami both channels and challenges in her fiction, and is, in part, why she has become one of Japan’s most important contemporary voices. Her first novella, My Ego Ratio, My Teeth, and the World, won the Tsubouchi Shoyo Award for Young Emerging Writers in 2007, while her second, Breasts and Eggs won the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s most prestigious literary prize. In 2009, Kawakami published her first full length novel, Heaven, a Nietzschean mediation on morality, while in 2017, she published a book-length interview with Haruki Murakami, entitled The Owl Spreads Its Wings with the Falling of the Dusk. Since its original Japanese publication, Breasts and Eggs has been expanded to novel length and recently published in English. This story of what it means to be a woman in contemporary Japan, which opens up the discussion on largely taboo subjects such as reproductive autonomy and beauty standards, is not only a compelling account of three women in modern-day Japan, but also a challenge to preconceived notions of womanhood that resonate well beyond the high-rises of Tokyo and Osaka.
TANK Your new book Breasts and Eggs began as a novella. When and how was it transformed into a novel?
Mieko Kawakami I was curious about the characters of the short story I had written 10 years ago. Also, I think that while death is first and foremost irreversible for humans, in some ways, so is being born: it’s the beginning of everything. When I thought about writing about reproductive ethics, it was like the girls of the short story came and urged me, saying, “Write more about us, you’re not done writing yet!”
TANK The book deals largely with the strict social pressures placed on women in Japan, particularly in relation to beauty standards and reproductive norms. Do you think these pressures are stricter in Japan than other countries?
MK I’ve never lived in another country, but if I compare data from various studies and articles, along with the stories of close friends and acquaintances, I think Japan really is a tough country for women. Basic individual rights still aren’t established and the maiden name of a married woman is not recognised; even now, official procedures require a hanko or personal seal, and family registers still exist. You can’t even buy the pill at a pharmacy. In this sense, Japan is not a progressive country.
TANK Many of your characters appear to be experiencing changes to their bodies, whether artificial or natural. In the novel, Makiko is considering undergoing treatment for breast augmentation, while her daughter Midoriko is experiencing early signs of puberty. It depicts the body as an ever-changing thing.
MK Yes. The fact that the body never stops changing is really amazing, isn’t it? To think about the body is to think about time, to think about life and death, and to face the emotions related to the body also means to think about society as it is.
TANK In the book, cosmetic surgery – a theme also explored in your novella Ms Ice Sandwich – appears to be largely about conforming to society’s expectations as opposed to personal fulfilment. In Japan, how pervasive is the idea that beauty equals social acceptance and has this changed at all in response to third- and fourth-wave feminism?
MK About 20 years ago, plastic surgery, for example, was a miserable thing. It was like an unattractive-looking woman being given an average face and then asking to be accepted; many people had internalised their assessment of the opposite sex. There has been a big change recently. Plastic surgery as a way of changing oneself is now widespread among young women. Of course, we cannot be completely immune to the oppression of lookism and the exploitation of women by men who make money through the surgery, however, I feel that the implications of self-change are becoming greater.
TANK In the novel, Natsu explores the option of sperm donation in her attempt to become a mother without a partner, which she largely keeps to herself. How common and how accepted is this form of conception in Japan?
MK It’s not at all common and I don’t think it will function as a pragmatic means of conceiving in the future either. That’s because the illusion of blood relations and pressure to conform is intense. The intolerance shown towards someone who has chosen a different way to others is a unique trait of Japanese society and although we were aware of this the coronavirus has reminded us just how intolerant we are.
TANK The book takes place in a very class-conscious Osaka. What was it like to grow up there?
MK There are various kinds of places in Osaka, but nonetheless it’s where the power of “joy and sorrow” is imparted. People from Osaka live long lives by laughing through the absurd and the sorrowful. It’s a tough characteristic to understand. I, myself, have been greatly helped by that cheerfulness.
TANK In the UK, the Covid-19 pandemic has left a noticeable dent in female employment, in particular with many women facing more domestic pressures and job insecurity. Some are saying years of female advancement could be undone. Has this conversation been taking place in Japan?
MK The majority of Japanese politicians are men who won’t let go of their vested interests. Similarly, it is women who bear the brunt of everything. The discussion is happening but there is no party in a position to make a decision. So, that’s the end of the discussion.
TANK Your books all end with a sense of openness, a feeling of incompletion that is profoundly lifelike and, I think, hopeful. What do you hope people will take away from your books?
MK Literature shakes up the world in which we live and in a sense, the reader cannot return to where they were before. That’s not a negative thing. We will instead look once more to our shared set of values and common sense that the world has taken for granted. That is the true meaning of being alive. ◉
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