Ms Ice Sandwich

A young boy returns obsessively to a supermarket sandwich counter, entranced by the beauty of the woman who works there. Her aloof demeanour and electric blue eyelids make him feel the most intense joy he's ever known. He calls her Ms Ice Sandwich, and he wants nothing more than to spend his days watching her coolly slip sandwiches into bags. But life keeps getting in the way - there's his beloved grandmother's illness, and a faltering friendship with his classmate Tutti, who she invites him into her private world. Wry, intimate and wonderfully skewed, Ms Ice Sandwich is a poignant depiction of the naivety and wisdom of youth, just as it is passing.

Mieko Kawakami is a multi-award-winning Japanese author of poetry and fiction. She was born in Osaka prefecture in 1976 and started her career as a singer and songwriter. Kawakami published her debut novella My Ego, My Teeth, and the World in 2007 and has since published several highly acclaimed books, earning her the Tsubouchi Shoyo Prize for Young Emerging Writers, the Murasaki Shikibu Prize and the prestigious Akutagawa prize for Breasts and Eggs. Her work has been translated into nine languages.