Chichi to Ran

Makiko and her daughter, Midoriko, come from Osaka to Tokyo to stay with Makiko’s younger sister, who narrates. Makiko has come for breast enlargement surgery and can think of little else. Midoriko, who is entering puberty and is anxious about the changes in her own body, has stopped speaking and communicates with her mother only in writing.

The narrator watches the pair with growing concern. The novella is written in long, unbroken sentences coloured by Osaka dialect. Its title means ’Breasts and Eggs’; the 2020 English book of that name is a later, rewritten and expanded work.