Female Friendship

Mieko Kawakami's 'Breasts and Eggs' is a monumental work of contemporary Japanese literature that challenges traditional feminine norms. The novel follows three women: Natsu, her older sister Makiko, and Makiko's daughter Midoriko. Through their intersecting lives, Kawakami explores questions of female agency, bodily autonomy, reproductive ethics, and the societal pressures placed on women's bodies in modern Japan.

My Brilliant Friend is the first book in Italian author Elena Ferrante's 'Neapolitan Novels'. Set in a poor neighborhood in post-WWII Naples, the novel follows two girls—Elena and Lila—depicting their complex friendship spanning half a century. It is a story about how women depend on, compete with, and try to master their own destinies in a violent male world.

Marilyn French's 1977 feminist fiction classic follows protagonist Mira's transformation from a submissive 1950s housewife to a 1960s feminist awakening, revealing patriarchal marriage's oppression of women and the possibility of women's liberation.