All the Lovers in the Night

Internationally bestselling author Mieko Kawakami returns to Norwich to discuss her pulsing, poetic and shocking third novel, All the Lovers in the Night. Mieko is one of an exciting new generation of Japanese authors and her novels Breasts and Eggs and Heaven were both cult hits.

About All the Lovers in the Night

Shy, lonely and introverted Fuyuko lives alone and fills her days with her job as a freelance proofreader. About to turn thirty-five, she cannot imagine ever having any emotional or successful relationship in her life as it currently stands. She is regularly haunted by encounters of the past.

But Fuyuko loves the light and goes out on the night of her birthday, Christmas Eve, to count the lights.

Her only friend, Hijiri, offers some light in her life, but it is a chance encounter with another man, Mr. Mitsutsuka, a physics teacher, who offers her access from another dimension to light.

About Mieko Kawakami

Mieko Kawakami is the author of the internationally best-selling novel Breasts and Eggs, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and one of TIME’s Best 10 Books of 2020, and the highly-acclaimed Heaven, her second novel to be translated and published in English, which Oprah Daily described as written ‘with jagged, visceral beauty.’ Born in Osaka, Japan, 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, their insights into the female body, and their preoccupation with ethics and modern society, her books have been translated into over twenty languages. Kawakami’s literary awards include the Akutagawa Prize, the Tanizaki Prize, and the Murasaki Shikibu Prize. She lives in Tokyo, Japan.