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.

Format: Paperback
Published: UK, 2026
Publisher: Canongate Books
Pages: 334
Language: English
ISBN 10: 1837263027
ISBN 13: 9781837263028