Entertainment
In Tumultuous Times, Readers Turn to ‘Healing Fiction’
Cozy, whimsical novels — often featuring magical cats — that have long been popular in Japan and Korea are taking off globally. Fans say they offer comfort during a chaotic time.
At Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s book signings, it’s not uncommon for fans to burst into tears.
His quirky fantasy series — set in a magical cafe in Tokyo where customers can travel back in time while their coffee cools — centers on ordinary people struggling with loss and regret who wish they could change the past. Readers often tell Kawaguchi that the stories helped them work through their grief, or led them to reconcile with an estranged relative or friend, he said.
“A comment I get a lot is, the books helped me heal,” Kawaguchi said through an interpreter during a visit to New York this fall.
A blockbuster in Japan, Kawaguchi’s series, “Before the Coffee Gets Cold,” has gained a global following, selling more than six million copies worldwide in 46 languages.
The fifth book in his series, “Before We Forget Kindness,” which was published in the United States on Tuesday, has drawn thousands of starred reviews on Goodreads (“I sobbed while reading,” a Goodreads user named Ally Fir, co-owner of The Mysterious Bookcase in Bournemouth, England, gushed in a typical five-star review.)
The series belongs to a booming genre called “healing fiction” — cozy, feel-good novels that have long been popular in Japan and Korea and are now catching on in translation around the world.
Fans of the genre say the heartwarming, whimsical stories offer comfort at a time when the world seems off-kilter and chaotic, and feel like an escape from distressing news about wars, political animosity and environmental disasters.
