French economist Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" was the surprise bestseller of 2014 in the United States, and it has also become a hit in Japan.
Piketty's book was written for an academic readership, but because of his timely theme — how financial inequality is exacerbated by policies that favor the accumulation of wealth — laypeople have sought it for a more detailed explanation of why the world economy is in the shape it's in. And since the U.S. is the center of that economy, his theories resonate more profoundly with Americans. In the original French, "Capital" sold "well for a scholarly book," according to the New Republic, but when it was published in English it took off. It has been translated into 30 languages, and a million-and-a-half copies have been sold worldwide.
You would assume that Japanese publishers fought a bidding war for the book, but local rights were already secured even before Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman brought it to the general public's attention. An imprint called Misuzu Shobo bought the Japanese rights several years ago, after an editor saw it mentioned in a French catalog for upcoming releases and thought it sounded interesting. The With News website explains that Misuzu is known in the publishing trade for handling dense works by Japanese academics and translations of philosophy tracts by the likes of Hannah Arendt and Claude Levi-Strauss. Few retailers keep Misuzu's books in stock because of their specialized subject matter and high price. In Japan's closely regulated book trade, publishers do not buy back unsold copies and due to legal restrictions on resales (saihan seido), retailers cannot discount them. When you want a book from Misuzu, you usually have to order it.