It's easy to delight in Yoshimoto's light and airy (but never carefree) style Themes of death and renewal abound in this novella of existential struggle and moral retrieval, though it does not lack in its honest presentation of the costs of violence and loss in urban life.

Banana Yoshimoto's novels have made her a sensation in Japan and all over the world, and Kitchen, the dazzling English-language debut that is still her best-loved book, is an enchantingly original and deeply affecting book about mothers, love, tragedy,and the power of the kitchen and home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage,the heroine of Kitchen, is an orphan raised by her grandmother,who has passed away. Grieving, she is taken in by her friend Yoichi and his mother (who was once his father), Eriko. As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale that recalls early Marguerite Duras. Kitchen and its companion story, "Moonlight Shadow," are elegant tales whose seeming simplicity'is the ruse of a writer whose voice echoes in the mind and the soul.

Kitchen

Moonlight Shadow

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