The book
A BEST BOOK OF 2022
Oprah Daily・TIME Magazine・Washington Post・Publishers Weekly・Lit Hub
Bestselling author of Breasts and Eggs Mieko Kawakami invites readers back into her immediately recognizable fictional world with this new, extraordinary novel and demonstrates yet again why she is one of today’s most uncategorizable, insightful, and talented novelists.
Fuyuko Irie is a freelance copy editor in her mid-thirties. Working and living alone in a city where it is not easy to form new relationships, she has little regular contact with anyone other than her editor, Hijiri, a woman of the same age but with a very different disposition. When Fuyuko stops one day on a Tokyo street and notices her reflection in a storefront window, what she sees is a drab, awkward, and spiritless woman who has lacked the strength to change her life and decides to do something about it.
As the long overdue change occurs, however, painful episodes from Fuyuko’s past surface and her behavior slips further and further beyond the pale. All the Lovers in the Night is acute and insightful, entertaining and engaging; it will make readers laugh, and it will make them cry, but it will also remind them, as only the best books do, that sometimes the pain is worth it.
“In the skilled hands of Bett and Boyd, Kawakami’s prose is instantly recognizable—immediate, incisive, and unfailingly honest.”—Katie Kitamura, Entertainment Weekly (A Most Anticipated Book of 2022)
The author
Mieko Kawakami
Mieko Kawakami is the author of the international bestseller Breasts and Eggs, a 2020 New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and the highly acclaimed Heaven, one of TIME’s Best Books of 2021. Her most recent novel is All the Lovers in the Night, which Hamilton Cain described as “her most accomplished novel yet” in Oprah Daily. Born in Osaka, Kawakami made her literary debut as a poet in 2006, and in 2007 published her first novella, My Ego, My Teeth, and the World. Known for their poetic qualities, insights into the female body, and preoccupation with ethics and modern society, her books have been translated into over twenty languages and are available all over the world. Kawakami’s literary awards include the Akutagawa Prize, the Tanizaki Prize, and the Murasaki Shikibu Prize. She lives in Tokyo.
Press
- May 21 2023
“Ascetic and deadpan.”
— The New York Times Book Review, “6 Paperbacks to Read this Week” - Nov 28 2022
A Best Book of the Year
— Oprah Daily - Nov 14 2022
A Best Book of 2022
— TIME Magazine - Jul 12 2022
“The writing is sensual, in that it’s enriched by senses.”
— Baffler - Jul 1 2022
“Lyrical.”
— The Brooklyn Rail - Jun 10 2022
“Takes aim at the social structures of class and gender.”
— Financial Times