قصة الكتاب :
Kōdansha, 2013. 185 pp. ¥1,400. ISBN 978-4-06-217799-3.
Kawakami Mieko
Born in Osaka Prefecture in 1976. Her 2007 debut Watakushiritsu
in hā, mata wa sekai [The World According to Tooth] was a candidate
for the Akutagawa Prize. Won the Akutagawa Prize in 2008
for Chichi to ran [Breasts and Egg]. Also awarded the Nakahara
Chūya Prize in 2009 for the poetry collection Sentan de sasuwa
sasareruwa soraeewa [In the Forefront, Pointing and Being Pointed
At, and That’s Just Fine]. In 2010, Hevun [Heaven] won the Minister
of Education Encouragement Prize for New Artists and the
Murasaki Shikibu Prize for Literature.

The Japanese word kawaii (commonly translated as “cute”) is becoming a truly
global concept. To understand fully the darker nuances beyond this adjective’s
superficial bright innocence, readers should look to Kawakami Mieko’s stories and
essays.
A temporary worker, a newlywed, a middle-aged woman whose husband has
gone bankrupt . . . the seven stories in this collection present women seeking some
kind of love in a range of environments. In the title story, a young wife with time
on her hands muses, “You know, I always wonder what on earth that feeling is
that you get when you buy macarons. You feel like you’re doing something irreducibly
stupid, but at the same time so invigorated by it.”
The women do not necessarily primarily love their boyfriends, husbands, or
families. Nor do they live in an easily understandable way or put all their effort
into living. They love themselves above all, followed by the various kawaii things
that fill each moment. What matters most is the kawaii their own affection is
drawn to, and this is entirely different from the ersatz kawaii they concoct to
target men and their money. However whimsical and kitsch the former may seem,
it is the genuine thing, born from the emotions of flesh-and-blood women, concealing
within it an urgent cry.
Kawakami has a formidable talent for prose, but perhaps at heart she is a poet.
The sparks that fly forth whenever the emotions of women living in our age brush
up against some facet of the world surrounding them are earnestly generated by
each line of her work, leaving lingering arcs behind. (OM)