This paper examines the structure of exclusion in the context of modernity in This is Amiko (2010), the first novel by the highly evaluated contemporary Japanese writer Natsuko Imamura, who received the Akutagawa Prize in 2019. The novel is set in the author's hometown in Hiroshima prefecture and portrays the heroine Amiko's childhood, which is full of systematic violence and miscommunication. Amiko is the representative of Imamura's protagonists, whose characteristics the main characters of her later works, such as the Akutagawa Prize-winning novel The Woman in the Purple Skirt, share. Imamura's main characters are marginalized in their environments and, despite their efforts, constantly find themselves caught up in a cycle of violence against them. The relationship breakdown caused by misunderstanding and miscommunication is depicted in This is Amiko and is also a prominent theme in The Woman in the Purple Skirt. The same exclusion structure causes the relationship breakdown between the narrator and Mayuko Hino in The Woman in the Purple Skirt and the crisis between Amiko and her mother in This is Amiko. Both novels depict the developments in the relationship between two women who fail to understand each other due to miscommunication. However, not only the miscommunication between women is the focus of attention in Imamura's works. It is also the miscommunication between people in general.