# Butter

- Author: Asako Yuzuki
- Translator: Polly Barton
- Original title (Japanese): BUTTER
- First published: 2017
- Publisher: Ecco
- This edition: 2024
- ISBN: 9780063236417
- Shelf: Japanese Literature in Translation

## Card

A young magazine reporter in Tokyo seeks interviews with a woman in detention who is accused of killing the lonely men she cooked for.  
Long, rich passages about food, like butter melting into hot rice, sit beside sharp thoughts about bodies and the pressure to be thin.  
For a night with something warm on the stove.  

## About this book

Rika Machida, a reporter at a weekly magazine, wants the story no one else can get: an interview with Manako Kajii, a home cook held on suspicion of murdering several men. Kajii will talk mainly about food, and she sets Rika dishes to try. As Rika cooks and eats her way into the case, her body, friendships, and work begin to shift. The book lingers on appetite, loneliness, and how women are judged for the way they look.

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- Title and author checked against Open Library (2026-10-27). No prices or stock.
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- Nijuyoji Bookstore (https://nijuyoji-bookstore.pages.dev/). Book data: Open Library and Google Books.