Kitchen （キッチン）is a novel written by Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto (吉本ばなな）in 1988 and translated into English in 1993 by Megan Backus. Although one may notice a certain Western influence in Yoshimoto's style, Kitchen is still critically recognised as an example of contemporary Japanese literature; The Independent, The Times and The New Yorker have all reviewed the novel favourably. Most editions also include a novella entitled Moonlight Shadow, which is also a tragedy dealing with loss and love. There have... been two films made of the story, a Japanese TV movie in 1989 and a more widely released version produced in Hong Kong by Yim Ho in 1997. In Kitchen, a young Japanese woman named Mikage Sakurai struggles to overcome the death of her grandmother. She gradually grows close to one of her grandmother's friends, Yuichi, from a flower shop and ends up staying with him and his transgender mother, Eriko. From Mikage's love of kitchens to her job as a culinary teacher's assistant to the multiple scenes in which food is merely present, Kitchen is a short window into the life of a young Japanese woman and her discoveries about food and love amongst a background of tragedy.
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