Kitchen
Banana Yoshimoto, 1988
キッチン
吉本ばなな
160 pages
Read in 2026.08
Check the synopsis and details on amazon.com
🔽 Summary and quick note 🔽
✔ Japanese bestseller from the 1980s that the world still admires
✔ Losing loved ones, morning, but eating always gives you the energy and hope you need
✔ Story that doesn't require logics and explanation, almost magical
★★★★☆ Mikage recently lost her grandmother who was her only family member left, and she starts a strange life with Yuichi and his mother. 2 short stories in this book tell us a story of mourning, and eating. It's about embracing the sadness, about taking your first step.
English reviews, ENG_About_Japan, ENG_Coming of age, ENG_Family, ENG_Female_led, ENG_Food, ENG_Friendship, ENG_Japanese fiction, ENG_LGBTQ
🔽 Book review 🔽
I read it in Japanese ages ago, probably 20 years ago or so, but this time I read it in Italian.
I almost never re-read, let alone in Italian, so in that sense I was lucky to find this out of blue and on sale (Italian books are so expensive), and good thing I didn't remember the story!
When I first lived in Italy in the early 2000s, this and Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami were the only books by Japanese authors, but they were read by so many that they were literally in every bookshop.
Mikage recently lost her grandmother who was her only family member left, and she starts a strange life with Yuichi and his mother.
In the afterword by the Italian translator it was explained how Yoshimoto's works were influenced by "shojo manga" (Japanese cartoon for girls) and why she came to the top at this time, that by itself was interesting.
The story does not require logics, it doesn't require seriousness, precision, or explanations, just like any shojo manga.
We find out that one of the major characters is a transgender woman, we suddenly find a depressed boy, and miraculously Mikage knows which hotel room Yuiichi is staying in an unknown town - there is no explanation, no excuses, you should just accept these as-is.
I mean, to begin with, the author's name is Banana, how are were supposed to take things too seriously in a novel written by Ms Banana?
We are going beyond logics here.
Kitchen, as well as Moonlight Shadow, tells us a story of mourning, and eating.
Eating is the way to give ourselves energy and hope.
This way of overcoming sadness is not "manly" and it's not about dismissing it as if nothing has happened, but it's about embracing the sadness, it's about, regardless of the sadness you carry on your shoulder, you take your first step.
And food is there to give you the courage.
🔽 Related pages 🔽
English reviews, ENG_About_Japan, ENG_Coming of age, ENG_Family, ENG_Female_led, ENG_Food, ENG_Friendship, ENG_Japanese fiction, ENG_LGBTQ
🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽
●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●
Kitchen
赤パンの本棚 akapan's bookshelf 