Name: Kitchen
Rating: 4.052721088435374 (441 reviews)
ISBN: 9780802115164

Banana Yoshimoto

Mary Daly

Relates the experiences of two free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan

Kitchen

Kitchen juxtaposes two tales about mothers, transsexuality, bereavement, kitchens, love and tragedy in contemporary Japan. It is a startlingly original first work by Japan's brightest young literary star and is now a cult film. When Kitchen was first published in Japan in 1987 it won two of Japan's most prestigious literary prizes, climbed its way to the top of the bestseller lists, then remained there for over a year and sold millions of copies. Banana Yoshimoto was hailed as a young writer of great talent and great passion whose work has quickly earned a place among the best of modern literature, and has been described as 'the voice of young Japan' by the Independent on Sunday.

ikkychan

When I was fourteen, I thought relationships were all about grand gestures. If you loved someone, you’d announce it to the world, letting everyone know who is the object of your affection. You would run after them through rain and snow, declaring your feelings under fireworks after a candlelit dinner. Loss, too, had to be loud—screaming into the sky, breaking down dramatically in public. That’s what I believed grief looked like. Me and my adolescent brain, with its half-formed frontal lobe, had no clue that most people grieve quietly. That healing often looks like a bowl of soup waiting on the table rather than a cinematic breakdown in the rain. That’s what Banana Yoshimoto captures in 
 Kitchen
. Not drama, but something far more intimate and enduring: the everyday rituals that keep us tethered to the world when grief wants to drag us under. Mikage Sakurai has just lost her grandmother, the last person she had in the world. This realization of being the only person left behind in the huge, looming apartment her grandmother bequeathed her gradually dawn on her exhausted soul, the weight of that emptiness creeps in inch by inch, and she slowly sinks in the darkness of her grievances without an ounce of strength left to do anything. Then one evening, her doorbell rings through the hollow hallway—Yuichi Tanabe, a university acquaintance and friend of her grandmother, stands there with an invitation to stay with him and his mother, Eriko. It's such a small gesture, really—just a place to stay—but it ends up saving both of them. What I love about Yoshimoto’s approach is how she never turns healing into a spectacle. Mikage doesn’t "bounce back" after some big epiphany or breakdown. Instead, she’s quietly held by the presence of others—the sound of someone moving in the next room, the clatter of dishes, the scent of food cooking. These moments don’t announce themselves as important, but they are. Yuichi doesn’t try to fix her; he just gives her space to exist while she’s breaking. His invitation—“Come stay with us for a while”—is simple, but it becomes the lifeline she didn't know she needed. Eriko, Yuichi’s mother, offers a different kind of support. A transgender woman who chose to become a parent and built a family out of loss, Eriko doesn’t give Mikage advice or pressure her to heal. Instead, she offers late-night companionship at the kitchen counter, drinks in hand, laughter echoing through the apartment. The kitchen, in these scenes, becomes a sanctuary—a place where grief is allowed to sit quietly without needing to be solved. Eriko’s warmth is immediate and unconditional. She tells Mikage, “I want you to stay here as long as you like,” and means it. Her life story—losing a wife, transitioning, raising Yuichi—embodies the idea that love can be created, chosen, and re-formed. She doesn’t just teach Mikage how to survive grief; she shows her that survival itself can be an act of defiant joy. Yuichi, meanwhile, doesn’t say much, but that’s the point. He’s grieving, too—first the mother he never knew, then later Eriko—and the fact that he understands Mikage’s pain without needing to name it is what binds them. When she slips and talks about her dead grandmother as if she were still alive, he doesn’t flinch. He simply offers to get ramen. That quiet, ordinary gesture becomes its own kind of love language. Yoshimoto insists that healing isn’t something you achieve; it’s something you live through. Mikage’s moments of peace come through several ways: Tactile presence: the weight of a shared blanket, the smell of soy sauce, the hum of a fridge; Acceptance of impermanence: Eriko tells her, “Nothing lasts forever.” But that’s not meant to discourage—it’s a permission slip to grieve and still go on, and; The kitchen as womb: The metaphor is clear—this space isn’t just where meals are made. It’s where people are reborn. One of my favorite moments in the novel is when Mikage first arrives at the Tanabe’s, she is instinctively drawn into the kitchen area and calmly comprehends the utensils and appliances scattered here and there. She’s not just looking—she’s participating in the emotional history of the home. The organized fridge, the German-made super peeler, the gratin dishes—these details become a kind of quiet inheritance. She’s not a guest anymore. She belongs. Yoshimoto writes, “Why do I love everything that has to do with kitchens so much? It’s strange. Perhaps because to me a kitchen represents some distant longing engraved on my soul.” This longing is what shapes Mikage’s healing. The kitchen reminds her she’s not alone. And then there’s the food. Mikage doesn’t just find comfort in eating—she builds a life around cooking. Culinary work becomes her way back to herself. Cooking requires presence; it’s nearly impossible to fall apart when you’re carefully simmering broth. Through food, Mikage learns how to stay embodied, to remain in this world even when grief tries to pull her away. Her new career isn’t just a job—it’s a choice to stay alive. This is why the katsudon scene is so powerful. After Eriko’s death, Yuichi disappears into his grief. Mikage, afraid of losing him too, travels across Tokyo to deliver him a pork cutlet bowl. It’s such a simple act—no confessions, no speeches—just a hot meal in a plastic container. But it says everything: You’re still here. I’m still here. Let’s eat. The grease, the steam, the way Yuichi devours it—it’s not just food. It’s a bridge between despair and something like hope. These meals—Eriko’s late-night snacks, Yuichi’s post-funeral ramen—aren’t about nutrition. They’re sacred rituals. The table becomes a place where silence is allowed, where pain is witnessed without needing to be solved. When words fail, food speaks. Herein lies the genius of Kitchen; how Yoshimoto turns something as mundane as a kitchen into a space charged with life and memory, a kind of spatial archive. Kitchens are both fleeting and permanent—meals disappear, but their traces linger. Garlic scents the walls. Teacups remember the curve of someone’s fingers. The novel’s quiet philosophy seems to be: Nothing lasts, but nothing is ever lost. Mikage’s love for kitchens comes from this in-between-ness. They’re thresholds: between hunger and fullness, absence and presence, solitude and togetherness. Her healing isn’t about “getting over it,” but about learning to carry the pain and still move forward—meal by meal. In Yoshimoto’s hands, the kitchen becomes a radical space: a room where grief can sit down, be fed, and, maybe, begin to soften. This is a beautiful, profound, and moving book about grief and healing and I thoroughly, utterly, completely enjoyed every page of it. Looking forward to more from Banana Yoshimoto.

Alan Ayckbourn

Relates the experiences of two free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan.

Kitchen was a very honest amd bittersweet discussion of loss, grief and healing. Its actually comprised of two stories "Kitchen" and "Moonlight Shadow". I was not aware of this before reading so I was a little taken aback when Kitchen ended. I overall really enjoyed the gentle and warm way the book spoke about grief and loneliness. I highlighted lots of quotes as I loved the way different emotions were portrayed. Despite having sad subject matter I felt a sense of comfort reading this book. However in terms of plot I enjoyed Kitchen way more than moonlight Shadow , as I found the latter a bit more predictable and not as captivating. Overall still a warm and touching read. 

Marz 

I think I need to give this another read at a different time. Not sure if it didn’t live up to my expectation or whether I purposely held myself back from it.

Emma Cragg

The acclaimed debut of Japan’s “master storyteller” (Chicago Tribune). With the publication of Kitchen, the dazzling English-language debut that is still her best-loved book, the literary world realized that Banana Yoshimoto was a young writer of enduring talent whose work has quickly earned a place among the best of contemporary Japanese literature. Kitchen is an enchantingly original book that juxtaposes two tales about mothers, love, tragedy, and the power of the kitchen and home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage, the heroine, is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Grieving, Mikage is taken in by her friend Yoichi and his mother (who is really his cross-dressing father) Eriko. As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale with the kitchen and the comforts of home at its heart. In a whimsical style that recalls the early Marguerite Duras, Kitchen and its companion story, Moonlight Shadow, are elegant tales whose seeming simplicity is the ruse of a very special writer whose voice echoes in the mind and the soul. “Lucid, earnest and disarming . . . [It] seizes hold of the reader’s sympathy and refuses to let go.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

I.. I. I shed big tears reading this, in the midst of a fight with my lover. The writing—the pain—is so achingly beautiful that I don’t mind crying over the words again and again. It feels as if the emotions of the characters have spilled into my own life. Like everyone else, I’ve experienced loss. Not necessarily deaths, but parting ways with many things: friends, boyfriends, fragments of my old life that have blurred into memories I can barely recall. Yet, how incredible it is to feel such profound love as we move through this world, even if only for a fleeting moment in the vast expanse of the universe.

🏹

This book was just so good. The story being described in such a beautiful way that it looked like the author was literally painting a scene for us readers.

The fact that there are so many harsh points of the story like the deaths of so many characters, is in perfect contrast with the surroundings, often described as ethereal or in general just very bright and green and beautiful.

The addition of the second story in the same book was a bit disorienting at the beginning, but I honestly loved that story as well so I don’t feel like condemning the choice.

Teresa Cervone

This book was just so good. The story being described in such a beautiful way that it looked like the author was literally painting a scene for us readers.

The fact that there are so many harsh points of the story like the deaths of so many characters, is in perfect contrast with the surroundings, often described as ethereal or in general just very bright and green and beautiful.

The addition of the second story in the same book was a bit disorienting at the beginning, but I honestly loved that story as well so I don’t feel like condemning the choice.

Corn Dawg

Eva Ströberg

Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto
.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
.
Disclaimer: I like Japanese literatures. I found that a lot of them have strange tales, almost ethereal, dream-like quality to it. This book, is somehow trapped between the two worlds. 
.
The first story is about Mikage, an orphaned young woman who was “adopted” into a family of a trans woman and her son. Mikage’s fave room in the house is the kitchen. I feel the story could have been so much more
.
The other short story is Moonlight Shadow, which is far more interesting imho than the first, but sadly shorter, about a young girl who has lost her boyfriend in an accident. 
.
Overall, I enjoyed the reading but it didn’t give me wow experience
.
#bananayoshimoto #japaneseauthor #currentlyreading #2023reads #bookstagram

Ryan Mateyk

These stories were so charming. There's plenty of death and sorrow but ultimately these read as joyful and exuberant. Full of life!

mayfly

Hmmm, I have nothing much to say about this book. It was simple and melancholic, it tackles death and how the characters deal with grief and moving on. The writing style was okay, I liked the little details of sceneries that I only usually see in Japanese literature. But overall, it was nothing exceptional.

lala

stopped reading the second part of Kitchen because it brought too much bad memories. Isn’t very interesting to begin with.

Anjorin Molayo 

i love how this was written. i, too, consider the kitchen and food as my coping mechanism. an art form that not many people understand. i felt like i was seen by yoshimoto's stories. the way her characters fangirl about recipes and warm tea make me feel closer to myself as well as to the author. this memoir style of writing is something i am still exploring but i fell in love with the pace and words as if we were having a sleepover and it was the time of the night where we have a heartfelt conversation about grief, love, and the things that make life worth living. i felt how a woman loves and wants to be loved, how a woman copes with loss, how a woman describes one of the best things in the world: food

Kitchen

Reviews

Highlights