Twenty-nine-year-old Riki is sick of her dead-end job, of struggling to get by ever since she moved to Tokyo from the country. So when someone offers her the chance to become a surrogate in return for a life-changing amount of money, it's hard to turn down.


Retired ballet star Motoi and his wife, Yuko, have spent years trying to conceive. As Motoi grows increasingly desperate for a child, their last resort is surrogacy; a business transaction, plain and simple. But as they try to exert ever more control over Riki, their contract with her starts to slip through their fingers . . .


Vibrating with the injustices of class and gender, tradition and power, Swallows is an acerbic vision of contemporary Japan, and of a young woman's fight to preserve her dignity - at any cost.

"Natsuo Kirino teases out the question "who does a child belong to?" - while confronting the gender assumptions and economic and power imbalances of contemporary Japanese society . . . Kirino somersaults her way to a suspenseful conclusion in a dazzling and troubling feminist page turner" - * Financial Times *

"Swallows is a compelling read, with characters that continually take you by surprise and it's perceptive about class, money and gender politics" - * Mail on Sunday *

"Praise for Natsuo Kirino: 'A taut, disturbing and timeless tale, filled with rage and pathos" - * Guardian *

"Japan's writer of the moment" - * New York Times *

"Daring and disturbing . . . [Kirino is] prepared to push the human limits of this world . . . Remarkable" - * Los Angeles Times *

"Lyrical, with an impelling storyline that demands attention" - * Independent on Sunday *