This young woman has just lost her grandmother, who was the last living member of her family. Her distinctive narrative voice can be serious, ironic, and confidential in turns. “Kitchen,” the title story, is told from the perspective of a young woman in Tokyo her name is Mikage Sakurai. The book was translated into English and published by Grove Press in 1993 in America, where it reached the best-seller lists and garnered mixed reviews. The book, Yoshimoto’s first, contains two stories about life, love, and loss in contemporary Japan: “Kitchen,” and “Moonlight Shadow.” The originality, style, and subject matter of the stories helped make the book a literary phenomenon, selling over six million copies in its first two years and winning several literary awards in Japan. Kitchen, published in 1988 in Japan, made Mahoko “Banana” Yoshimoto an overnight celebrity and caused “Bananamania” to sweep Japan’s media and youth culture.
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