Japanese author Mieko Kawakami spoke about her novel Sisters in Yellow, now available in English from Knopf, in a recent Literary Hub interview. The book, translated by Laurel Taylor and Hitomi Yoshio, follows protagonist Hana's memories of life in a 'yellow house' with three other women amid poverty and exploitation. Kawakami describes it as a loose homage to Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s The Makioka Sisters, exploring sisterhood's complexities.
Mieko Kawakami, winner of the 2007 Akutagawa Prize, has gained international acclaim with works like Heaven, shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize, and All the Lovers in the Night, a 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Her latest, Sisters in Yellow, originally serialized in the Yomiuri Shimbun and published in book form in 2023, begins in April 2020 with 40-year-old Hana spotting a familiar name in a smartphone news article. This triggers flashbacks to 1995, when 15-year-old Hana meets Kimiko and they live together in the 'yellow house' during Tokyo's late 1990s, working in the mizu shobai nightlife amid economic hardship and crime. The color yellow symbolizes fortune and hope, tied to feng shui beliefs about prosperity. Kawakami notes, 'I started writing Sisters in Yellow right as #MeToo and fourth-wave feminism were hitting Japan,' aiming to highlight both the positives and negatives of women's solidarity. She portrays characters as survivors in a neoliberal world, shedding light on society's overlooked margins without inciting pity. Translators Taylor and Yoshio, who alternated chapters and extensively edited each other's work, tackled challenges like yakuza slang, dialects, and 1990s cultural references, including songs by ZARD and X Japan. Yoshio called it Kawakami's 'best work yet,' praising its plot-driven noir elements interwoven with interior monologues. Kawakami reflects on her Osaka upbringing by a single mother, crediting humor and unconditional love for the characters' underlying joy.