Hungering for more

In fat-averse Japan, a female convicted killer with a French food fetish gives a journalist a sensory awakening.

- JOSIE SHAPIRO

Three men are dead and a woman - Manako Kajii, reviled for her full figure and love of French cuisine - is in the Tokyo Detention House. Did she kill these men or were T they victims of society, lost without a maternal influence, destined only for a sad and lonely death? Loosely based on real events, Asako Yuzuki's Butter, published originally in Japan in 2017 and now translated into English, takes this premise and tunnels into Japan's cultural expectations for women, men and the hunger in all of us.