Butter author Asako Yuzuki: ‘I’m very far from the ideal Japanese woman’

Interview Butter author Asako Yuzuki: ‘I’m very far from the ideal Japanese woman’ Lisa Allardice Her novel about a female serial killer was a global hit. As Asako Yuzuki’s second book is published in English, she talks about criticism at home – and why she’ll be writing darker stories in the future T he next time Japanese novelist Asako Yuzuki comes to the UK, she would like to bake some traditional Japanese muffins for Paul Hollywood on The Great British Bake Off, she says when we meet over video call. It is evening in Tokyo, where she lives with her partner and eight-year-old son. “I’ve had my bath and am ready for bed,” she explains, via translator Bethan Jones, apologising for being in her pyjamas. She thinks the Bake Off judge would be particularly impressed by “marubouro” muffins, from Nagasaki . “Kazuo Ishiguro also comes from Nagasaki and British people love Ishiguro, so they are bound to love these muffins,” she continues. “They go very well with tea.” As anyone who has read Yuzuki’s international bestseller Butter will know, Yuzuki is all about food. Based on the 2009 real-life “Konkatsu Killer” case ( konkatsu means marriage hunting), in which 35-year-old Kanae Kijima was convicted of poisoning three men, Butter follows the relationship between journalist Rika Machida and Manako Kajii, a serial killer and gourmet cook, through a succession of interviews in Tokyo Detention Centre. Yuzuki even signed up for the high-class cookery school in Tokyo that Kijima attended as research. The result is an irresistible mix of social satire and feminist thriller, dripping with descriptions of buttery rice and soy sauce. Although the 44-year-old author has written more than 20 novels in Japanese, her publishers savvily decided her 2017 novel Butter was ripe for an anglophone market, where there was a growing appetite for translated fiction by female Japanese writers . Hits from Sayaka Murata ( Convenience Store Woman ), Mieko Kawakami ( Breasts and Eggs ) and Hiromi Ka...