Akiko couldn't abide little girls between three and ten years old - she detested them more than any other kind of human being.

'Fiery, beguiling stories' Paris Review

'The power of the artfully spun words make the reader shudder' Sayaka Murata

'The female writer I most admire among all the Japanese authors' Shusaku Endo

On a Saturday night that feels filled with excitement, Fukuko and her husband decide to visit, unannounced, another couple. So begins a bewitching imagined journey into the forbidden.

Fumiko's passion for her husband thrives on sadomasochism. But now she may be pregnant and the ants that crawl over a piece of meat in her kitchen, squirm obscenely, teasing and goading her on.

When Akiko thinks about how she cannot have children, she feels an emotion close to joy. But though she loathes little girls, she cannot resist buying expensive clothes in which to dress little boys.

From one of the most influential voices in Japanese literature, these extraordinary stories introduce us to women risking self-destruction to fulfil their desires.

With an Introduction by Sayaka Murata