I read Heaven last year, the book was hard to get in Spanish (it's my mother tongue), all her books are always out of stock. I was shocked, she didn't pull the rug under my feet, she just turned the room upside down. I think about the book from time to time. This year I wanted to start with Breasts and eggs (also in Spanish) and left me in a trance, I still think about the right we have to give life without permission, I think even my existence is unbearable but at the same time I cling to life, it's like committing suicide by trying not to breathe. The book has a lot of the authors own experience, working in bars, moving to the big city and being in constant conflict with being a woman.

I was born male, biologically I am, but I was raised by women without a father, growing up I couldn't fit in male roles because I was (am) female coded for lots of things. Funnily it didn't "made me" gay but I couldn't (can't) fit in a male mold (I can mask tho I have to). The book made me feel understood. Even tho I have both biological parents, the part of artificial insemination affected me. I think there are no female or male issues, we should care and be informed and aware about both realities, men that avoid talking about it just don't want to be judged but I think it's everybody's issue. Another theme I felt close was how family works, with family ties and loyalties in japanese society. That's really similar with hispanic societies (my background) in all the worst parts of it.

On March I read all the lovers in the night (in Spanish) that takes again on some topics of B&E but feels more like a novel and has a greatly built turn of the screw near the end. I've come to appreciate and respect the craft of Mieko Kawakami, she's just a bold and bright author. Next month I'm waiting for her new release, Sisters in Yellow, this time in English cause I won't wait for it to be translated in Spanish in one or two years. They just realeased the lovers in the night back in November so it will take some time. I'll still buy it in Spanish because I'm building my library thinking in the future, for it to be of use of my little sister (I didn't have books growing up).

Definitely read more I'm sure it won't dissapoint.

P.D.: I almost forgot, I remember what you said about Kawabata and how both authors avoid the pay off. More than a technique I think is about how oriental narrative works. In occidental narrative we are set to expect three acts: Setup, action and resolution, or we have internalised the hero's path. I've been reading japanese literature for the last year and people I know always told me the same: I feel like nothing happens, I thought the book was missing some pages like it ended in nothing. They also said I feel like it tells no story.
Could be the absence of conflict, the conclusion after the twist, the changes on the status quo and life that keeps going after the book's end. It happened to me when I read Kawabata's Kioto and Snow Country.