Mitsuyo Kakuta

Mitsuyo Kakuta has won virtually every major Japanese literary prize — including the Naoki Prize for The Eighth Day and the Tanizaki Prize — yet remains underrepresented in English translation. Her contribution to The Book of Tokyo hints at her considerable range: psychological acuity, a gift for capturing the textures of domestic life, and a willingness to explore the darker currents beneath Japan's polite surfaces.

Kakuta writes about women — their constrained choices, their secret rebellions, their complicated relationships with family and freedom — with an unsparing honesty that has made her one of the most respected voices in contemporary Japanese fiction. Her relative absence from English bookshelves is one of translation's great gaps.