“The place I like best in this world is the kitchen”: Reading the Kitchenspace in Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen

Banana Yoshimoto (the pen name of Mahoko Yoshimoto, born in 1964) is a Japanese writer who, like her contemporary Haruki Murakami, is distinguished by her desire to question and problematize aspects of modern Japanese society in her fiction. Banana Yoshimoto is regarded as a representative figure in contemporary Japanese fiction, foregrounding the experiences and self-questioning of a younger generation struggling to find its place in a society torn between conservatism and the contingencies of a radical, dynamic, globalized, but at the same time, consumer culture. The elusiveness of relationships, of intimacy, of love and life, the difficulty of defining and finding happiness, and the inscrutability of one’s self are some of the central themes in her writing. This paper looks at Yoshimoto’s widely acclaimed novella, Kitchen (1987), and the manner in which Mikage Sakurai, the protagonist, manoeuvers through death, loneliness and healing to arrive at a secure sense of self. This happens through the primary metaphor of the kitchen, and the gendered associations that it elicits. At the same time, Yoshimoto’s representation of this space, as well as of food in general, challenges certain stereotypes associated with these. In the process, interpersonal relationships as well as the conventional idea of family also come to be reconstituted in the novella.