Vibrating with the injustices of class and gender, tradition and power, Swallows is an acerbic, witty vision of contemporary Japan by Natsuo Kirino, acclaimed author of the smash hit Out

Twenty-nine-year-old Riki is sick of her dead-end job, of struggling to get by ever since she moved to Tokyo from the country. So when someone offers her the chance to become a surrogate in return for a life-changing amount of money, it's hard to turn down. But how much of herself will she be forced to give away?

Retired ballet star Motoi and his wife, Yuko, have spent years trying to conceive. As Yuko begins to make peace with her childlessness, Motoi grows increasingly desperate for a child to whom he can pass on his elite genes. Their last resort is surrogacy; a business transaction, plain and simple. But as they try to exert ever more control over Riki, their contract with her starts to slip through their fingers . . .

Vibrating with the injustices of class and gender, tradition and power, Swallows is an acerbic, witty vision of contemporary Japan, and of a young woman's fight to preserve her dignity - at any cost.

Details

ISBN13: 9781837264285
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 352
Edition: Main
Publication Date: 02 Sep 2025
Publisher: Canongate Books
Publication City, Country: Edinburgh,United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 21.4(H)x13.5(L)x2.6(W)360
Weight (gm): 360

Author Biography

Natsuo Kirino is one of Japan's most highly decorated authors. In 1993, she won the Edogawa Rampo Prize for Rain Falling on My Face. In 1998, she won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for OUT, in 1999 the Naoki Prize for Sweetcheeks, in 2003 the Izumi Kyoka Prize for Grotesque, in 2004 the Shibata Renzaburo Prize for What Remains, in 2005 the Fujin Koron Literary Award for Awakening!, in 2008 the Tanizaki Junichiro Prize for Tokyo-Jima, in 2009 the Murasaki Shikibu Literary Prize for The Goddess Chronicle, and in 2010 and 2011 the Shima Kiyoshi Romance Literature Prize and the Yomiuri Literary Prize for What on Earth Would There Be? In 2015, she was awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon and in 2021 the Waseda University Tsubouchi Shoyo Grand Prize. In 2011, she won the Mainichi Art Award and in 2023, the Yoshikawa Eiji Literary Prize for Swallows - her fifth novel to be translated into English. A TV adaptation of Swallows aired in summer 2024 to great critical acclaim.

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Reviews

'Natsuo Kirino's novels bring us into direct contact with human life. Her fearless pen forces us to confront the ugliness, intensity and depth of our own desires, to the point that we cannot look away. But just as those desires reach a fever-pitch, she restores our faith in humanity, in a way that only Kirino can. The relentless beauty of her stories leaves me breathless every time' - MIEKO KAWAKAMI, author of Breast and Eggs
'A timely and engrossing drama about desire, precarity, and the uses of a woman's body. Kirino's psychologically compelling and sharp-witted storytelling draws us into her characters' lives, leaving us to answer: do our bodies have a price and who gets to decide?' - RUTH OZEKI, Women's Prize-winning author of The Book of Form and Emptiness

'Frank, tender, expansive, and radically embodied, Swallows centres the commodification of female fertility to explore how people live, love, work, dream and die today. Luminous' - TESS GUNTY, author of The Rabbit Hutch


'A masterful feat of storytelling as well as a biting critique of gender, patrimony and class. . . A writer in effortless command of her craft, Kirino brilliantly upends our expectations at every twist and turn. Just when you thought things could not get any more complicated, she deftly ups the ante. The resulting tension builds to a startling ending that both disturbs and delights' - JULIE OTSUKA, author of The Buddha in the Attic


'A taut, disturbing and timeless tale, filled with rage and pathos' - TAN TWANG ENG, Guardian


'Japan's writer of the moment' - New York Times

'Daring and disturbing . . . [Kirino is] prepared to push the human limits of this world . . . Remarkable' - Los Angeles Times

'Lyrical, with an impelling storyline that demands attention' - Independent on Sunday

'One of the most unexpected and playful novels to emerge from Japan in recent years . . . a triumph. In its boldness and originality, it broadens our sense of what modern Japanese fiction can be' -Telegraph