How Japanese novelist Asako Yuzuki conquered England
“Manako's Butter,” her novel interweaving a detective story, feminism, and gastronomy, is a bookstore phenomenon across the Channel. Asako Yuzuki belongs to a new generation of Japanese novelists that the British are discovering today, sometimes a step behind French readers. The newspaper “Nihon Keizai Shimbun” investigated the reasons for this craze.
Japanese novels are enjoying growing popularity in the UK. Sixteen of the country's 40 best-selling translated fiction novels come from the archipelago. Works by Japanese women novelists inspired by everyday life are particularly popular. Asako Yuzuki's translation of Manako's Butter even outsold Japan's best-selling novels in the UK [it was published in English in February 2024 under the title Butter, a year after the French version by Calmann-Lévy].
Manako's Butter has been named "Book of the Year 2024" by British book giant Waterstones. It was chosen from a dozen titles selected based on recommendations from booksellers at some 300 of the company's branches. The novel has sold over 280,000 copies in about a year, surpassing the 270,000 copies sold in Japan since its publication in 2017.
Between late 2024 and early 2025, the book, emblazoned with the word "butter" in Japanese on the cover, flooded London's bookstores. Passengers could even be seen reading it on the subway. "I really enjoyed this novel, which made me rethink my relationships with my boyfriend and friends," a British woman in her twenties told us.
“The torments to which the hero
Courrier International
