The English version alone has sold more than 800,000 copies! After 8 years of despair, a novel about Japan’s “humble everyday life” is gaining popularity overseas.

When it comes to Japanese content exports, anime and manga are the standard. Now, however, novels are quietly taking over the world. While the English translation of Asako Yuzuki’s “Butter” became a bestseller in the U.K. and led the Japanese literature boom, another wave of Japanese novels known as “Iyashi-kei” (healing novels) is sweeping Western bookstores.

Pension Wakeatte” (written by Satoshi Yagisawa, Poplar Publishing), released on February 18, 2014, was translated and published in seven countries and eight languages before its release. The same author’s previous work, “Morisaki Bookstore Days” (Shogakukan), is currently being translated into 40 countries and 50 languages, with a total of over 800,000 copies in English and 200,000 copies (paper) sold in India alone. In 2012, it was shortlisted for the British Book Award in the Debut Fiction category. While the socially-conscious “Butter” attracted Western readers, Yagisawa’s works resonate with the tranquility of everyday life and the warmth of “place. Why is it that “Japan’s humble everyday life” is now capturing the hearts of people across borders? We asked Mr. Satoshi Yagisawa.

From Taiwan to the World! An Astonishing Offer

How “The Days of Morisaki Bookstore” swept the world is due to the existence of a Taiwanese woman. Twelve or thirteen years after its publication, when the book had not been widely read in Japan, an overseas agent who had read the Taiwanese edition and fell in love with it, said, “I want to sell this book to the world. From there, the book began to attract translation offers at a steady pace.

When the first offers came in, they came from about 20 countries all at once. The contracts were piled up, and I was like, ‘What the heck is this?

(Laughs.) Among them was HarperCollins in the US. The then editor-in-chief of the publisher said to me, ‘It’s not every day in Japan that you get a contract from a publisher so great that it is considered one of the top five publishers in the U.S.,’ and that was the first time I realized that something extraordinary was happening.

The English translations of Yagisawa’s works have been consistently handled by Eric Ozawa. The only difficulty in the translation was a scene in which Takako, the main character, and her aunt are naked together in a hot spring. The only difficulty I had in translating the scene was when Takako, the main character, and her aunt were nude together in a hot spring. The translator wrote in the afterword that the scene was a “Japanese hot spring scene” and that he was wondering what was going on. I heard that the translator explained the Japanese culture of hot springs and public baths in the afterword. Still, the impressions of foreign readers are surprisingly similar to those of Japanese readers. Simple, beautifully written, easy to read, and with a good rhythm” – these same words transcended language barriers. Of these, the English version is the best-selling, reaching 200,000 copies (paper) in India alone. More and more readers actually visit Jimbocho, and “I’m really happy that people come all the way from overseas,” he says with a twinkle in his eye.

What is “reading meditation” that foreign readers are raving about?

Of course, there are some differences between the Japanese and international reading of the book.

In Japan, for example, it is common for people to write short sentences about their feelings after reading a book, such as “I felt relaxed” or “The food looked delicious,” in comments on Instagram. However, according to Mr. Yagisawa, European readers spend three to four days rolling the book around in their minds and chew it over before writing long sentences.

One thing Westerners often say to me is that reading is like meditation,” he said. I was surprised because I had never seen this word used by Japanese people. Some of them even said that while reading the book, they were given an opportunity to face their inner self. I feel that they do not end their reading with “it was interesting,” but rather, they think that reading is over when they have reached that point in their own hearts.

On the other hand, in India, where people have an image of passionate and energetic people based on their impressions of movies and other media, how are they reading the books?

I have received feedback that some of the younger generation in their 20s and 30s in India seem to find it difficult to live with such energy, saying, “I wondered what it would be like to be sensitive, but now I feel that it is okay for me to be the same way.

If you think about it, people with sensitive temperaments, called introverts or HSPs, are estimated to be one in five people in every country, so not everyone is so energetic and energetic.”

Also, when asked about the difference between the two, he replied, “Haruki Murakami-san is loved as a literary work, but my works seem to be loved as a story. That makes me happy. I want to be a place where people who don’t usually read books can read them.

Even if the healing boom is over…

The genre name “healing novel” was first used by Yagisawa himself on the obi of “Morisaki Bookstore Days. When you hear the word “healing music,” you know it’s something you listen to at night when you’re tired. In the same way, I thought it would be easier to reach people who need it now. I wanted to reduce mismatches. Although the term “Healing Fiction” was already widely used overseas, this book was the catalyst for its popularization in Japan.

However, he clearly rejects the attitude that he writes because of the boom.

Rather than writing about healing fiction as a trend because it is in vogue, the most important thing for me, at least, is what I can and want to write about, and what I write about is categorized as healing fiction as a result. Even if the boom ends in a few years, I think I will continue to write the same things. Because that’s all I can write.”

He describes his style using a culinary metaphor. I treat universal human emotions as important ingredients, and add pensions and interesting characters as seasoning. In the case of “heartwarming” stories, the ingredients are often characters such as handsome chefs and delicious-looking food, but I do the opposite. That’s why the beginning of the book is light, but as you read it, you’ll find that it’s very deep.

I don’t really feel like I’m trying to save the reader. My first desire is to heal the characters from their wounds. As I was writing, I realized that I wanted to heal them from their past or from their feelings of not being able to be themselves. I feel that the readers are reliving that and healing on their own.”

The editor’s outburst… 8 years of broken brushes

The road to becoming an internationally acclaimed author has not been a smooth one. The humiliating experience he experienced in the early days of his debut, which he posted on X in March 2012, drew a huge response on SNS. Mr. Yagisawa calls it a “kebase.

The editor at the time of my debut told me, ‘Anyone can write a work of this caliber,'” he said. Every time I saw him, I was told by my editor that not only my work but also my personality was being negated and that I should not get carried away just because I made my debut with a work of this caliber. My confidence was completely shattered. I was a young man at the time of my debut, so I didn’t even know how good my work was.

A few years later, he began having heart palpitations and running to the bathroom every time he went to the computer. While taking medication, he was unable to write a novel for almost eight years. While his wife worked outside the home, Mr. Yagisawa read psychology and philosophy books and took daily two-hour walks to digest the words.

While it was tough, I also felt very alive,” he said. It was a process of getting to know my own mind. Every day I would walk and think about the words I read, wondering what they meant–it was a very luxurious time. I feel like that is in all of my current work.”

As he was recovering, he received word that he had been nominated for a British Book Award.

I had lost confidence in my work because my editor at the time had written me off, but now that same work is being recognized so highly overseas, I am very happy to have been nominated for the British Book Award. But now that the same work has been so well received overseas, I have a solid confidence in myself. Therefore, in order to write new works from now on, I wanted to verbalize and organize the events of the past in my mind.

I honestly didn’t expect the response to be so great. In the end, he did not attend the British Book Awards ceremony. I had never seen my book lined up in a foreign country before, and I was a bit nervous about it,” he said. Now that I think about it, it would have been a waste of time to get on board at least once in my life (laughs).” Like the characters in the film, he is put off by the global reputation of the film–his life-size attitude appears to overlap with the sincerity of the story.

Harsh past and desire for a “place to belong

The underlying theme of both “The Days of Morisaki Bookstore” and “Pension Wakeatte” is “a place to belong. Kaede, the owner of “Morisaki Bookstore Hibi” says, “I want this place to be a safe base,” which are also Yagisawa’s own words.

When I was a child, I grew up in a dysfunctional home. I had the feeling that home was a tense and dangerous place, so from around the upper grades of elementary school, I was always looking for a place where I could feel safe and be myself. That has been in my mind for a long time, and I think it became the theme of my work.

It was not until after he suffered a mental breakdown that he felt a sense of place for the first time. I have a wife, a cat, and a delicious meal when I go home. That was enough to make me happy. He also makes it clear that even though he has gained worldwide acclaim as a writer, he still finds it hard to live. I think the most important thing for self-esteem is not to be praised by others, but to be able to say to yourself, ‘I’m fine the way I am. I don’t care so much about what others think of me, but rather what I actually feel on a daily basis. These words are typical of Yagisawa, who graduated from the broadcasting department of Nihon University’s College of Art and made his debut before the age of 30 without ever working for a company.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs is also paying attention! His next work will be set in a public bathhouse.

Tatami mats, coffee shops, antiquarian bookstores, and public bathhouses – Mr. Yagisawa sees the phenomenon of “retro Japanese daily life” being sought overseas.

I originally really liked such spots. I used to really like such spots, but now I find that they match the tastes of people overseas (laughs). I don’t know what it is about old bookstores, but they have a certain flavor that makes me feel at home, and I can sense the life of the people there. Photos of public bathhouses also give me a sense of warmth even when there are no people there. I wonder if people overseas are unconsciously seeking out these places because they are a little tired.”

Before the COVID-19 crisis, slow life and mindfulness were “Before the COVID-19 crisis, when I wrote these works, it was before the COVID-19 crisis, and ideas like ‘slow life’ and ‘mindfulness’ would be rather sniggered at,” he recalls. Many people from overseas have told me that they sense the spirit of slow life and mindfulness in his works,” Yagisawa said in response to this feedback,

In response to this comment, Mr. Yagisawa said, “Foreign people have taken the liberty of translating my works into their own language, and I was able to understand that what I was writing about was the process of healing universal human emotions, which is something I didn’t understand until I heard the foreign evaluations.

This year, the Agency for Cultural Affairs also began promoting the export of Japanese content, including novels as well as anime and manga, to overseas markets in earnest. In addition to participating in the London Book Fair this month at the request of the Agency, Mr. Yagisawa has been invited to Buenos Aires, Argentina in May, Singapore and Malaysia in September, and Iceland next year, among others. His next work will be set in a public bathhouse. During the eight years that he has not been able to write, stories have continued to emerge in his mind, and he says , “I have enough stock to last me another five years.

To use a food analogy, I used to cook only Japanese food, but from now on I think I can experiment with Western flavors without changing the ingredients, as a service to our international readers.

What he wrote without aiming for the world, he realized, was moving the world. Stories written by people who have been searching for a place to stay will reach someone who is looking for a place to stay. The boom may be the result of the accumulation of countless such resonances.

Satoshi Yagisawa is a novelist. He made his debut around the age of 30 with “Morisaki Shoten no Hibi” (The Days of Morisaki Bookstore) (Shogakukan). Currently translated into 40 countries and 50 languages, the English edition has sold over 800,000 copies. In 2012, he was shortlisted for the British Book Award in the “Debut Fiction Category.” In February 2014, he published his first new novel in 10 years, “Pension Waikeratte” (Poplar Publishing Co., Ltd.).

Click here to purchase “Pension Waiakeatte ” (Poplar Publishing Co., Ltd.)