Kitchen (novel)

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Kitchen（Japanese.キ ッ チ ン） (in the original the Japanese loan word Kitchin) is the first novel by the Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto ( Japanese吉 本 ば な な） from 1988, which was translated into German in 1992 by Wolfgang E. Schlecht.

The novel attracted a great deal of attention immediately after its publication. The book won two major literary awards in Japan and sold nearly two million copies in its first year. In a short time Kitchen became a cult book and people in Japan talked about a "banana mania".

In 1988 the author received the title "Best Newcomer Artist recommended by the Minister of Education" from the government. In 1993 the Japanese Foreign Ministry distributed a copy of Kitchen to each delegate at the G7 summit .

Although some Western influence can be seen in Yoshimoto's style, Kitchen is still critically recognized as an example of contemporary Japanese literature; The Independent , The Times, and The New Yorker all rated the novel positively.

Most editions also include a novella called Moonlight Shadow , A Tragedy That Also Addresses Loss and Love, which is the author's first published story.

Two films were made about the story, a Japanese television film from 1989 and a more widely distributed version produced by Yim Ho in Hong Kong in 1997.

Acting persons

  • Mikage Sakurai - Young Japanese woman. Main character. She is struggling with the loss of her grandmother, who was her last surviving relative. After their death, she moves in with Yuichi Tanabe and Eriko Tanabe.
  • Yuichi Tanabe - son of Eriko Tanabe. Main character. His mother died of cancer when Yuichi was a very young child. He lives with his loving transgender mother and supports Mikage in her time of grief. He eventually loses his mother and is dependent on the emotional support of Mikage.
  • Eriko Tanabe - supporting character. Transgender woman. Eriko owns a nightclub where she is killed by a man who feels like he is being tricked into being a transgender woman. She is described as a very beautiful and kind woman.

content

Kitchen

From Mikage's love for the kitchen, to her job as assistant to a cookery teacher, to the various scenes where food plays a minor role, Kitchen is a glimpse into the life of a young Japanese woman and her discoveries in both food and love against the backdrop of a tragedy.

In Kitchen , a young Japanese woman named Mikage Sakurai struggles to overcome the death of her grandmother. She gradually recovers from a flower shop near a friend of her grandmother's, Yuichi, and eventually stays with him and his transgender mother Eriko. During her stay, she develops an affection for both Yuichi and Eriko and almost becomes part of their family. However, she moves out after six months when she finds a new job as an assistant to a cookery teacher. When she discovers that Eriko has died, she tries to support Yuichi during this difficult time and realizes that Yuichi is probably in love with her. Reluctant to face her own feelings for him, she goes to Izu for a work assignment. However, after going to a restaurant to eat katsudon, she realizes that she wants to bring it to Yuichi and spontaneously gets into a taxi.

Moonlight shadow

In Moonlight Shadow , a woman named Satsuki loses her boyfriend Hitoshi in an accident and tells us: "The night he died, my soul went to another place and I couldn't bring it back." She befriends his brother Hiiragi whose girlfriend was killed in the same accident. One sleepless night she meets a strange woman named Urara who has also lost someone. Urara introduces her to the mystical experience of the tanabata phenomenon, which occurs only every hundred years and which she hopes will cauterize her collective grief.

reception

“Ms. Yoshimoto has a wonderful tactile ability to convey a mood or a feeling through her descriptions of light, sound, and touch, and an effortless ability to penetrate the hearts of her characters. Your writing has a pleasant directness, and although this sincerity can occasionally lead to sentimentality, it often grabs the sympathy of the reader and then refuses to let it go. "

- Michiko Kakutani : The New York Times , January 12, 1993

“Yoshimoto's eastern precision is sometimes idiosyncratic and haiku-like ('white tiles catch the light,' tint '), but it has a quality of poignant, dignified resilience that makes this little work worthwhile:' We live like the lowest worms. Always defeated - defeated we make dinner, we eat, we sleep. Everyone we love dies. Still, it is unacceptable to quit life. "

- Peter Reading : The Independent , January 3, 1993

Prices

  • 6. Kaien Newcomer Writers Prize - November 1987
  • 39th Best Newcomer Artists - August 1988

Book editions

Film adaptations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cool, cult and very Japanese. In: ORF. Ö1, April 8, 2017, accessed in 2020 .
  2. ↑ Elizabeth Hanson: Hold the Tofu. In: The New York Times. January 17, 2013, accessed February 23, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Michiko Kakutani: Books of The Times; Very Japanese, Very American and Very Popular. In: The New York Times. January 12, 1993, accessed February 26, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Peter Reading: Defeated we make dinner: Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto. In: The Independent. January 3, 1993, accessed February 26, 2020 .