RaveThe Financial TimesWhich is the greater triumph, struggle and cost — giving birth to a child or to a novel? There’s nothing new, perhaps, in this question. But there’s everything new in the fearless way it is explored in Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs ... unsentimental clarity ... intense and provocative, an intellectual thriller. But a breeziness of delivery, translated in books one and two by Sam Bett and David Boyd respectively, makes for a light-on-its-feet read. Kawakami is a writer who alchemises the banal into a kind of musical poetry ... Kawakami toys with the reader; at every turn there’s a friend or colleague taking a different position on writing and motherhood ... While the finale is decisive, Breasts and Eggs remains a stunning work of iridescence, changing with the light. For good reason this promises to be one of the most talked-about novels of the year.
