Synopsis
Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.
From the bestselling Japanese author of Breasts and Eggs and international literary sensation Mieko Kawakami, comes a sharp and illuminating novel about a fourteen-year-old boy subjected to relentless bullying.
In Heaven, a fourteen-year-old boy is tormented for having a lazy eye. Instead of resisting, he chooses to suffer in silence. The only person who understands what he is going through is a female classmate, Kojima, who experiences similar treatment at the hands of her bullies. Providing each other with immeasurable consolation at a time in their lives when they need it most, the two young friends grow closer than ever. But what, ultimately, is the nature of a friendship when your shared bond is terror?
Unflinching yet tender, sharply observed, intimate and multi-layered, this simple yet profound novel stands as yet another dazzling testament to Mieko Kawakami’s uncontainable talent.
TIME's 100 Must-Read Books of the Year
'Mieko Kawakami is a genius' - Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times
'An expertly told, deeply unsettling tale of adolescent violence' - Vogue
Translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd.
Details
12 May 2022
9781509898251Reviews
Taking two outcast teens as its unhappy protagonists, it is an expertly told, deeply unsettling tale of adolescent violence that will, no doubt, only grow the author's fan baseVogue
This is the real magic of Heaven, which shows us how to think about morality as an ongoing, dramatic activity. Merve Emre, New Yorker
To read Heaven, by the author of Breasts and Eggs, and newly translated into English from Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd, is to bear witness to an unrelenting horror film of one boy’s youthThe Washington Post
The second novel to appear in English by the bestselling Japanese author Mieko Kawakami is tauter and even more perceptive than its predecessor . . . Heaven is less than half the length and holds double the emotional forceNew Statesman
