Japanese novels in English translation soar in popularity as TikTok falls in love with stories of authors such as Ryu Murakami and Mieko Kawakami

Sales of Japanese novels in English translation are booming in the UK – thanks in part to the BookTok community of eager readers on TikTok

People are ‘genuinely excited’ about reading them, says publisher; getting to see ‘your world through another perspective’ is another factor, he says

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Detail from the cover of Mieko Kawakami’s novel “Heaven”, one of the Japanese novels in English translation that have seen a surge in popularity in the UK.

Published: 4:15pm, 27 Jan 2024Updated: 4:19pm, 27 Jan 2024

In Britain, English translations of Japanese novels are experiencing a boom in popularity thanks to social media, with word of mouth driving book sales.

Trends on platforms such as TikTok – where members of the BookTok community recommend their favourite books, genres and authors – have inspired young Britons to seek out more works translated from other languages. Novels featuring Japanese society and culture in particular have become hits.

For British-based publishers like Pushkin Press, this online word of mouth is extremely important for book sales, according to publisher and managing director Adam Freudenheim.

“The books becoming popular on TikTok are [because of] people being genuinely excited about them, not publishers,” Freudenheim said in a recent interview. “If we try to push a book, that’s not what works. It is readers responding to them. It is genuine.”

Novels by Japanese authors such as Mieko Kawakami (above) have become popular on TikTok. Photo: Instagram/@kawakami_mieko

In short videos, many with music in the background, TikTokkers introduce books by authors such as Banana Yoshimoto, Mieko Kawakami and others. They rate the works and present their thoughts on the books’ themes on topics like motherhood, loss, bullying and bonds of friendship.