Kitchen, written in 1988, is still one of Yoshimoto's best-loved books. Both Kitchen and its companion novella, Moonlight Shadow, follow free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan, dealing with love, loss, and moving beyond their grief. According to the Yoshimoto, as quoted in The Japan Times, the main themes in her work are "the exhaustion of young Japanese in contemporary Japan" and "the way in which terrible experiences shape a person’s life." Additional issues explored in Kitchen include transsexuality and the loneliness inherent in modern Tokyo life. There have been two films adaptations of the story: a Japanese TV movie made in 1989 and a more widely disseminated version by...
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