Reading guide: Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Asa Yoneda

In the distant future, humans are on the verge of extinction and have settled in small tribes across the planet under the observation and care of the Mothers. Some children are made in factories, from cells of rabbits and dolphins; some live by getting nutrients from water and light, like plants. The survival of the race depends on the interbreeding of these and other alien beings – but it is far from certain that connection, love, reproduction, and evolution will persist among the inhabitants of this faltering new world. 

Unfolding over geological eons, Under the Eye of the Big Bird is at once an astonishing vision of the end of our species as we know it and a meditation on the qualities that, for better and worse, make us human. 

Under the Eye of the Big Bird was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025. 

Hiromi Kawakami was born in Tokyo in 1958 and is one of Japan’s most popular contemporary novelists. In 2001 she won the Tanizaki Prize for Strange Weather in Tokyo, which became an international bestseller and was shortlisted for the 2013 Man Asian Literary Prize and the 2014 International Foreign Fiction Prize (the precursor of the International Booker Prize). Her other fiction in translation includes The Nakano Thrift Shop, The Ten Loves of Mr Nishino, People from My Neighbourhood, and The Third Love. Kawakami has contributed to editions of Granta in both the UK and Japan. 

James Bradley, The Guardian

‘As its queasily childlike and affectless voice – marvellously captured by translator Asa Yoneda – suggests, the novel’s real concern is not with the particularities of the worlds it depicts, but with the ways in which human nature and society shift and alter as our bodies and minds change.’

Justine Payton, The Master’s Review

‘Hiromi Kawakami’s Under the Eye of the Big Bird, a novel in stories translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda, is a masterpiece of speculative fiction. Few books hold attention the way this one does, resonating with both the present moment and fears of a perhaps not-too-distant future. It is an intimate, complex, and raw exploration of what it means to be human, of the strengths and weaknesses of the species, and what that means for our survival and our extinction. Joining the literary genius of authors like Richard Bach, Daniel Quinn, Paulo Coelho and Rebecca Solnit, Kawakami’s writing evokes a rare depth of contemplation and self-reflection.’

Hilary Leichter, The New York Times

‘Translated from the Japanese by Asa Yoneda, Kawakami’s prose is often clinically deadpan, but she also finds humor and warmth in the puzzles of existence and extinction.’

Alison Fincher, Asian Review of Books

‘But Under the Eye of the Big Bird is more than an excellent work of speculative fiction. Like all great literature, it takes up some of life’s biggest questions about what it means to be alive, to love, and to be human. (“You’re a very human human,” a mother tells one character. “You create things, and you destroy more than you create.”) And to this catalogue of great questions, Kawakami adds, “How will the human species face the end?”’

Niall Harrison, Locus Magazine

‘The power and the pain of the novel lies in its ability to bridge between humanity as an abstract and humanity as a characteristic, to pick out moments from a vast sweep of time and show their insignificance and their simultaneous, ultimate importance. The novel ends with a plea from a speaker who doesn’t know if they will ever be heard: I wanted to reach back into the page and say, you are.’

‘What made me decide to write this book was the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011. That was a moment when we were confronted by the fact that humanity is no longer able to control the technologies we have created.

‘It wasn’t until about three years after the nuclear meltdown that I was able to start writing Under the Eye of the Big Bird. It took me over two years to finish it. Between being inspired to write a story and actually starting to write, I need time to think. This one in particular needed more of that time. Even now, having finished it, I’m still mulling over many of the things I wrote about in it: about human groups, about relationships between individuals, and about where we’re heading as a species.’

Read the full interview here.

Under the Eye of the Big Bird is composed of 14 stories that initially appear distinct, but gradually mosaic into a larger whole. How did this fragmented structure shape your understanding of the book’s overarching narrative? And would you say it’s correct to describe it as a novel?

While set in the future, the plot is non-linear and offers glimpses of a timeline that spans across generations and centuries. How does this format affect your perception of time within the book? Why might Hiromi Kawakami have chosen to withhold or distort chronology?

Kawakami toys with narrative perspective. The ‘I’ of the second story is only revealed to be different from the ‘I’ of the first when their gender is revealed as male. The range of narrators also feels tonally similar. How does this ambiguity affect the reading experience? And what might it suggest about individual identity?

The Mothers – the AI figures that oversee reproduction, raise children, and maintain the evolution of humanity – are central to the book. How might Under the Eye of the Big Bird be read through a feminist lens, and what is it saying about the role of women in shaping societal systems?

‘You’re a very human human,’ a Mother tells one character. ‘You create things, and you destroy more than you create.’ How does Under the Eye of the Big Bird challenge or complicate our understanding of what it means to be human? What message might the author be trying to impart on the reader? 

The tone of Under the Eye of the Big Bird could be described as flat, cool and detached. In what ways does the atmospheric quality of the writing and the narrative style enhance or challenge the novel’s themes of destruction and survival?

In an interview with the Booker Prizes website, Hiromi Kawakami said the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in 2011 inspired her to write Under the Eye of the Big Bird, marking a moment when humanity was ‘no longer able to control the technologies we have created’. Discuss how this concern is reflected within the narrative. 

The final story reframes much of what comes before, giving the book a sense of circularity. Did you interpret the book’s ending as offering hope, or does it suggest that humanity is trapped in a cycle of failure?

The International Booker Prize 2025 judges described the novel as ‘an urgent enquiry into the implications of AI, the promise of a genetically adapted or machine-led future for the human project, but done in a gorgeous, ambient, non-doctrinaire sci-fi style’. Discuss the book’s prescient nature, particularly in light of the ongoing debates about the ethics of AI. 

Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Allison Markin Powell

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

The Chrysalids by John Wyndham

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder

The Sirian Experiments by Doris Lessing

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro