All the Lovers in the Night: A Haunting Tale of Solitude, Longing, and the Search for Light

"I had thought that my life was a series of quiet, passing moments. But then, I saw the light."

Fuyuko Irie drifts through life like a ghost, unseen and untouched. A solitary freelance proofreader in her thirties, she spends her days in silence, her only real connection to the world a colleague, Hijiri, who remains more of a distant presence than a true friend. Isolated and disconnected, Fuyuko sees herself as a woman who has failed to take control of her life—until a fleeting encounter changes everything.

Drawn to the quiet radiance of light, Fuyuko finds solace in the glow of the Tokyo night, a ritual she repeats every Christmas Eve. But when she meets Mitsutsuka, a reserved yet perceptive man, something within her begins to shift. As she tentatively steps toward intimacy, painful memories from her past resurface, forcing her to confront the walls she has built around herself.

In All the Lovers in the Night, Mieko Kawakami delivers a luminous and deeply affecting novel about loneliness, self-discovery, and the fragile, electrifying beauty of human connection. At once poetic and piercing, this is a story of a woman awakening to life—and to the light that has always existed within her.