Japanese author Mieko Kawakami brings her acclaimed new novel Sisters in Yellow to Southbank Centre for an evening conversation with Georgina Godwin on 28 August 2026. The International Booker Prize-shortlisted writer discusses her bold noir thriller set in Tokyo’s underbelly, in an event presented in association with The Japan Foundation.
Kawakami is best known for Breasts and Eggs, the internationally bestselling novel that became a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and one of TIME’s top ten books of 2020. In Sisters in Yellow, she turns to a gripping story of survival, memory and moral compromise, following Hana as she revisits a past shaped by poverty, danger and impossible choices.
Mieko Kawakami at Southbank Centre
About the Event
In the discussion, Kawakami explores the world of Sisters in Yellow, her first crime novel and a taut psychological drama set against the pressures of late-1990s Tokyo. The story centres on Hana and Kimiko, whose lives are shaped by hardship, secrecy and a shocking crime that resurfaces years later. The event offers a chance to hear directly from one of Japan’s most influential contemporary writers in an intimate literary setting.
About Sisters in Yellow
Mieko Kawakami’s Sisters in Yellow is a tense, character-driven novel set against the pressures of 1990s Tokyo, where poverty, ambition and survival shape every decision. The story follows Hana, a teenage girl living on the edge of instability, who becomes drawn into the world of Kimiko and other young women struggling to make their own way in a harsh city.
As the women build a fragile life together, they open a small bar called Lemon and try to create something of their own. Even as money problems, scams, and danger begin to close in. The novel later circles back to the past from an adult perspective, when a court case forces Hana to confront buried memories and the consequences of what happened years earlier.
Kawakami has described the book as a crime novel that explores the relationship between facts and memories, victims and perpetrators. That noir framing gives Sisters in Yellow its unsettling atmosphere, while its deeper focus on friendship, betrayal, and the cost of survival makes it one of her most emotionally layered works.
Plan Your Visit
The Purcell Room is an auditorium within Queen Elizabeth Hall at Southbank Centre. The venue address is Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX, with Waterloo and Embankment as the nearest tube stations and Waterloo as the nearest train station. More than 20 London bus routes also pass within 500 metres of the venue. Full travel information is available on the Southbank Centre website.
Southbank Centre
Access Information
Southbank Centre states that it is working to remove barriers, so its facilities and events are accessible to as many people as possible. Help points, toilets, performance and exhibition spaces are accessible. The venue also offers excellent public transport links with step-free access. Information about wheelchair spaces, blue badge parking, access maps, guides and the Access Scheme is available on the venue’s access page.
Cash-free Venue
Please note that Southbank Centre is cash-free and cannot accept cash payments across its venues. Visitors should plan to pay by card or another cashless method during their visit.
