Heaven: A Novel

Mieko Kawakami's debut coming-of-age novel, Heaven, was originally published in Japanese in 2009. The novel received the Murasaki Shikibu Prize in 2010, which is awarded to an outstanding work of literature written in Japanese by a woman. In 2021, Heaven was translated into English by Sam Bett and David Boyd. The English translation was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2022.

Kawakami was inspired by the work of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche when she wrote Heaven. Nietzsche’s 19th-century philosophical novel, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, was especially impactful in getting Kawakami to consider how questions of good and evil could be asked in the context of a Japanese middle school setting. Set in 1991, Heaven’s unnamed narrator is a boy in middle school who is regularly bullied by his class peers because of his lazy eye. A girl in his class, Kojima, reaches out to befriend him, and they begin a correspondence that forces the narrator to confront his notions about conformity and self-acceptance.

This study guide refers to the Picador paperback edition of Sam Bett and David Boyd’s English translation of the novel, which was published in 2022.

Content Warning: The source material for this study guide discusses and portrays childhood bullying. The novel includes scenes of violence and abuse, and it also includes references to death by suicide, suicidal ideation, thoughts of self-harm, and sexual violence.

Plot Summary

In 1991, the narrator, who is an unnamed student in middle school, receives an anonymous note at school that invites him to be the anonymous writer’s friend. The narrator initially suspects that one of the class bullies is playing a trick on him, but he soon realizes that the notes are being sent to him by another classmate named Kojima. She, too, is often targeted by the class bullies. They agree to continue their correspondence and learn to find comfort in each other’s company. Kojima explains that whenever she feels overwhelmingly anxious, she cuts items that feel important, like the curtains in their classroom. As summer approaches, she invites the narrator to come with her to see a place she calls “heaven.”

The narrator and Kojima visit an art museum where she reveals that “heaven” is a painting of two lovers who live in harmony despite the suffering they experience. While looking at the paintings, Kojima starts to feel overwhelmed, so the narrator offers to let her cut his hair. Kojima agrees, and this helps her calm down.

Over the summer, the narrator stays at home with his stepmother; his father travels a lot and is largely absent from their lives. The narrator doesn’t hear from Kojima again until summer ends. She tells him she visited her father over the summer; her parents are divorced, and her mother remarried a rich man. Kojima sympathizes with her father, who struggles to make ends meet after losing his business to debt. Kojima explains that she is often messy and unkempt—which the school bullies usually tease her for—in a way to feel connected to her father. She says that she and the narrator have an ability to understand each other’s suffering, which sets them apart from the rest of their peers, adding that this understanding is why she wanted to be his friend. She tells the narrator that his lazy eye is her favorite thing about him.

After school starts again, the bullies, led by a popular star student named Ninomiya, severely beat up the narrator. Kojima helps him after the bullies have left and she suggests fighting back. The narrator’s injuries are so severe that he goes to the hospital and struggles with insomnia from the pain of his injuries. He starts thinking about the consequences of his death and wishes that he could vanish from the world so that he can no longer be bullied. Kojima, on the other hand, becomes more defiant against her bullies.

The narrator encounters one of the bullies, a boy named Momose, at the hospital, and he confronts him about his abuse. Momose explains that he doesn’t care about right or wrong, and that he and the others bully the narrator as a convenient way to release their aggression. Momose encourages the narrator to believe in whatever he wants to and to practice it; Momose says it is of no use to try to encourage people to change and follow his belief system.

During the narrator’s check-up, the doctor tells the narrator that he can get his lazy eye treated with corrective surgery. The narrator is excited about this and shares the news with Kojima. However, she is disappointed with this development, convinced that the narrator’s eye is a “beautiful weakness” that must be protected rather than changed.

Kojima is so upset that she breaks off contact with the narrator. Then, she suddenly writes to him, asking him to meet her at the park. When the narrator arrives, he learns that Kojima was forced to summon him by Ninomiya and the other bullies. The bullies try to make the narrator and Kojima have sex in front of them. The bullies strip the narrator of his clothes. However, Kojima takes her clothes off herself and starts laughing forcedly and touching the other bullies, scaring them away. The narrator suddenly realizes the common truth behind Kojima and Momose’s philosophies: He must commit to a belief that he chooses for himself and overpower others who try to force their worldviews on him.

Ninomiya throws Kojima to the ground, hurting her so badly that she becomes unresponsive. A passerby interrupts the scene, and Kojima is carried away in a blanket. The narrator doesn’t mention her again, but he says that he has never had another friend like her. Soon after, he confesses everything about his bullying at school to his stepmother, who offers to pull him out of school. The narrator also decides to go forward with his eye surgery, which is successful. The novel ends with the narrator looking out at the world for the first time with his new eyes, and he is moved to tears by its beauty.