Yagisawa Satoshi: An Interview with the Days at the Morisaki Bookshop Author About His International Bestseller

Readers Lining Up

In January 2026, Yagisawa Satoshi traveled to India for the first time to take part in the Chennai International Book Fair and the Kerala Literature Festival in Kozhikode, known as Asia’s largest literary festival. Between these two events, he also gave a talk at a Bengaluru bookstore, so it was a packed 10 days in the three southern Indian cities. Hundreds of fans lined up to get him to sign their books.

“I was amazed by how passionate the Indian people were about reading,” Yagisawa says. “At first, they read the English translations, but recently there have been translations into Hindi and Tamil too. It’s a multilingual country, so there are plans for versions in eight more languages.”

The interview took place at the Neko no Hondana bookstore in Jinbōchō, Tokyo, (top) where people can rent shelves as their own tiny “stores” on which to sell the books of their choice. Yagisawa’s own shelf (bottom) has translations of his books in various languages. (© Hanai Tomoko)

Yagisawa’s popularity in the West was sparked by a 2022 translation of his Days at the Morisaki Bookshop into Italian. The following year, the English version was published, translated by Eric Ozawa; to date more than 600,000 copies have been printed. In 2024, it was nominated for debut book of the year at the British Book Awards, and in March of this year, Yagisawa was invited to the London Book Fair.

While he is now a globally successful author, the path here was not an easy one. It was only after the COVID-19 pandemic that overseas popularity led to his “rediscovery” in Japan.

Tokyo’s Book District, Jinbōchō

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop was originally published in Japanese by Shōgakukan in 2010, and a film adaptation was released the same year. After the main character Takako has her heart broken by a colleague and quits her job, she starts working at her uncle’s modern Japanese literature bookstore in Tokyo’s Jinbōchō district, which is famous for its many used bookstores. Here she rebuilds her life through healing encounters with books and the people around her. Yagisawa was inspired by his own connections to Jinbōchō.

“I had a job as a writer at an editorial production company in Kanda, and after work I would always go home through the used bookstore district. Walking through the streets, one evening, I suddenly had an idea for a novel, and I finished writing it in about a month.”

After falling in love with Jinbōchō as a high school student, Yagisawa regularly visited while he was at university studying screenplays. He was always hanging out at stores with books related to screenplays and movies, as well as spending time at cafés, including the long-established Sabouru, which became a model for the café in his book.

“You can browse for secondhand books, and there are the kind of coffee shops I like with old-fashioned charm,” Yagisawa says. “Before we got married, my wife worked at a Jinbōchō bookstore. Because she enjoyed modern literature, I started reading it too. That might have influenced the setting of my novel.”

Yagisawa outside the café Sabouru. (© Hanai Tomoko)

A Painful Period

Yagisawa had taken the first step, but was still a long way from being a bestselling author. He published the sequel More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, Days at the Torunka Café set in Tokyo’s Yanaka district, and If I Live With You (not yet translated into English) about two stepsiblings who find a lost cat, but sales were disappointing.

“Workplace fiction was popular at the time, with demand for a flashy, provocative view of the world. My stories were seen as slow and bland,” Yagisawa says.

He lost all confidence after receiving a number of hurtful comments, and stopped writing new books for many years. He even experienced panic attacks while trying to write. During this period, he read widely in philosophy and psychology, trying to find anything that could aid his emotional recovery even a little.

“This was the most painful period of my life. I reached rock bottom. But by studying human psychology—which I’d been interested in for a while—again from scratch, it also became a meaningful time. I made a full mental recovery, and once I came out on the other side, so to speak, I was able to return to writing.”

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop got its first translation into traditional Chinese for a Taiwan edition. Taipei-based agent Emily Chuang, who helps facilitate translations of novels from many countries, played a key role in the speedy spread of Yagisawa’s book in the West.

“Emily read the Taiwan edition and apparently really liked it. As she’s an agent who deals with global distribution, particularly for Europe and North America, everything fell into place from there. My book found many readers in Italy before publication at HarperCollins—one of the Big Five publishers—and I could only think, ‘Wow! That’s amazing!’ like it was happening to somebody else.”

A 2025 edition of the Japanese original Morisaki shoten no hibi (left) and its English translation Days at the Morisaki Bookshop. (© Shōgakukan)

A Place to Belong

“My novel, which had been described as ‘bland,’ became popular overseas during the pandemic, and then people began reading it in Japan. Maybe everyone was feeling worn out,” Yagisawa says.

According to Shōgakukan, Japanese novels featuring cats have been popular for some time overseas. Another publication from the same house—The Cat Who Saved Books, written by Natsukawa Sōsuke in 2017—is set to be translated into 40 languages, including the many already completed. Since the beginning of the pandemic, demand has risen for what is known as “healing” or “cozy” fiction, with pioneers including The Kamogawa Food Detectives written by Kashiwai Hisashi in 2013 (translated into 30 languages) and Days at the Morisaki Bookshop.

“It’s often called a ‘healing’ novel, but I didn’t originally set out to write that kind of book. But I like to write with a feeling that I’m close to the characters, like I’m comforting them. If you write in detail about how someone is saved in a story, then it can also save the reader.”

Whether a Jinbōchō bookstore, a Yanaka café, or a guesthouse in Tochigi’s Nasu Highlands—as in his Pension Wakeatte, published in February 2026 in Japanese—Yagisawa’s novels are centered on specific places, depicting the connections between the people there. While the characters show consideration for each other, they do not overstep their boundaries, maintaining an appropriate level of distance.

In the streets of Jinbōchō. (© Hanai Tomoko)

“Basically, I set my books in places I like,” Yagisawa says. “This is probably because deep down, I value a sense of belonging. I was raised in a dysfunctional family, and home wasn’t somewhere that I could relax, so when I was young, I wanted a place that I could belong. I think that’s why finding this kind of place is a theme of my books.

“I think about novel settings in my everyday life. For example, that I’d like to set a book in a movie theater. I enjoy writing about characters’ relationships in a particular location, and the subtle sense of distance between them.”

Days with Cats

In Japan, the two Morisaki Bookstore novels were published in new editions in 2025. Days at the Torunka Café also had a new edition after the pandemic, before Yagisawa completed the trilogy in 2024; the first of this series was published in English in late 2025. Translations into a number of languages for his latest Pension Wakeatte were confirmed even before it went on sale.

Yagisawa prizes his daily life, and has not allowed this sensational situation to disrupt it. He has found a treasured space to be with his wife and two rescue cats.

“Cats just live together with you, and don’t impose themselves. A part of me needs that distance. When I write novels, too, I want to create something light but deep, that doesn’t impose itself. Readers are sensitive so they’d see through it right away if I tried to force messages on them, telling them to ‘cry’ or ‘feel healed.’”

The everyday life we take for granted can come under threat—everyone has realized that since the pandemic, and the uncertainty of international events heightens our anxiety. Yagisawa’s novels about the precious daily life of ordinary people will no doubt continue to find readers both in Japan and around the world.

Referenced Works

All of Yagisawa Satoshi’s works translated into English to date are translated by Eric Ozawa.

• Morisaki shoten no hibi is translated as Days at the Morisaki Bookshop
• Zoku Morisaki shoten no hibi is translated as More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop
• Junkissa Torunka is translated as Days at the Torunka Café
• Shiawase no kaori: Junkissa Torunka is translated as More Days at the Torunka Cafe: The Scent of Happiness (to be published in 2026)
• Kimi to kuraseba (If I Live With You) and Penshon Wakeatte (Pension Wakeatte) are untranslated

• Hon o mamorō to suru neko no hanashi by Natsukawa Sōsuke is translated as The Cat Who Saved Books by Louise Heal Kawai
• Kamogawa Shokudō by Kashiwai Hisashi is translated as The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Jesse Kirkwood

(Originally written by Kimie Itakura of Nippon.com and published in Japanese on March 24, 2026. Banner photo: Yagisawa Satoshi with translations of Days at the Morisaki Bookshop in various languages at the Neko no Hondana bookstore in Jinbōchō, Tokyo. © Hanai Tomoko.)