Mieko Kawakami (川上未映子, Kawakami Mieko, born August 29, 1976) is a Japanese writer and poet from Osaka.
Her work has won prestigious Japanese literary awards in several genres.
Her 2019 novel Natsu Monogatari, an expanded version of Chichi to Ran, became a bestseller and was translated into English under the title Breasts and Eggs.
Kawakami's works have been translated into several languages and distributed throughout the world.
Four women of different ages work at or frequent an ice cream shop, each dealing with dreams, timidity, inexperience with love, and personal pain, their lives intersecting at the shop.
After Japan's defeat in WWII, "Pandora no hako" follows a young man named Risuke (Shota Sometani) who has contracted tuberculosis. He travels to the countryside to a unique nursing facility to receive treatment for his disease. At the sanatorium all the patients and nurses go by nicknames and Risuke decides to reinvent himself as Hibari. During his stay, Hibari develops realationships with other patients and nurses. After Hibari's friend Tsuikushi (Yosuke Kubozuka) gets discharged from the nursing facility, Hibari writes to him about his relationships with Dakesang (Mieko Kawakami) the chief nurse and Mabo (Riisa Naka) another nurse that is bright and seems to like him.