One of Japan’s most acclaimed contemporary writers, Mieko Kawakami was launched into literary stardom in 2007, when she won the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s prestigious award for emerging writers. Her work, which has been translated into over forty languages, is known for its philosophical explorations of gender, class, and ethics in modern society. Increasingly popular overseas as well as at home, her novel *Heaven* was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize, and this was followed the next year by *All the Lovers in the Night* becoming a finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award. Like a lot of people, I was greatly looking forward to reading her new novel *Sisters in Yellow*, which is now out in English, translated by Laurel Taylor and Hitomi Yoshio and published by Knopf. * **Leanne Ogasawara**: The novel opens when the protagonist Hana notices the name of a woman she knows—but thought she had all but forgotten—in a short news article that appears one day on her smartphone screen.…