Asako Yuzuki and Polly Barton in conversation at Waterstones Piccadilly

We are honoured to welcome award-winning Japanese novelist Asako Yuzuki and translator Polly Barton to Waterstones Piccadilly to celebrate their internationally bestselling phenomenon, Butter. Teeming with searing insights into sexism, obsession and pleasure, this glorious Japanese cult classic revolves around a famed female chef convicted as the serial killer of lonely businessmen and a story-hungry young journalist who wishes to learn the secrets of gourmet cooking from her.

Asako Yuzuki was born in Tokyo in 1981. She won the All Yomimono Award for New Writers for her story, Forget Me, Not Blue, which appeared in her debut, Shuuten No Anoko, published in 2010. She won the Yamamoto Shūgorō Award in 2015 for Nile Perch No Joshikai. She has been nominated multiple times for the Naoko Prize, and her novels have been adapted for television, radio and film. Butterwon Waterstones Book of the Year 2024, the Books Are My Bag Breakthrough Author Award 2024, and debut of the year at the British Book Awards 2025. It is shortlisted for the CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger Award 2025.

Polly Barton is a writer and Japanese literary translator. Her translations include Butter by Asako Yuzuki, Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda, and There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura. She has published two works of non-fiction, Fifty Sounds, for which she won the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, and Porn: An Oral History. What Am I, A Deer?, her debut novel, was published in April 2026.

Please note: Book and ticket option includes a copy of Butter (RRP £9.99) available for collection on the night.

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