Kitchen

Use these links to supplement and complement students’ reading of the work and to increase their overall enjoyment of literature. Challenge them to discern parallel themes, engage through visual and aural stimuli, and delve deeper into the thematic possibilities presented by the title.

Recommended Texts for Pairing

Anagrams by Lorrie Moore

• Lorrie Moore’s contemporaneous portrait of love and grief features a similar structure, with a tangentially related narrative that comments and expands on themes from earlier parts of the book.
• addresses similar themes of Death and Finding One’s Purpose/Moving On

Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata

• Kawabata’s Nobel-winning prose influenced a generation of writers in Japan.
• Many of the spare stories in this collection address themes of Death and Finding One’s Purpose/Moving On.

Tampopo (1985), dir. Juzo Itami

• Itami’s “ramen Western,” a wide-ranging comedy about a widow and the man who takes her under his wing to make the best ramen restaurant in town, provides another view of grieving people turning to food for comfort and purpose.
• engages the themes of Gender Roles and Finding a Sense of Purpose/Moving On

Other Student Resources

The Coming of Age of Transgender Representation in Japan

• This well-researched Medium article for An Injustice! provides an excellent overview of the history of transgender identity in Japan and a thoughtful explication of Eriko’s transgender identity in the novel.
• The piece offers a valuable trans perspective on Gender Roles in Kitchen.

How the English Language Failed Banana Yoshimoto

• provides an overview of some textual differences that result from translation, which may interest students who want to explore how cultural and syntactical differences affect the presentation of theme and content
• Eric Margolis argues that in the original Japanese, Kitchen does not have the same sentimental tone, suggesting that the sparer style of the original and its portrayal of grief is not fully captured by the English-language version.

Teacher Resources

A Room of Her Own in Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen

• Robert Kellerman’s academic essay will help teachers put the cultural mores of kitchens into proper context for students, especially in thinking about how it relates to Gender Roles.