Afterword
HELLO, everyone! It’s nice to meet you. I’m Hiyoko Kurisu.
I’m a Japanese author with a love for fantasy, but I also write novels with a heavy focus on tasty food, work, and romance. In the past, I’ve also written about Japanese gods and yokai. (If you’re interested in my other works, please feel free to do an online search for “栗栖ひよ子,” my name in Japanese!)
In Japanese, hiyoko means “chick.” I chose it as my pen name because I feel like I actually share quite a few similarities with baby chickens.
This is the first time my work has ever been published in English, so I’m very excited to be able to share my stories with English speakers.
In Rapunzel of the Magic Item Shop, I packed the story full of tropes that I’m a big fan of—sorcerers, apprentices, magic items, girls growing up… I hope you all enjoyed it just as much as I did!
Throughout the novel, “family” is a theme that comes up a lot. I think found family is something that kindles a certain warmth in many people, so I really hope you could sense that through Lille’s story.
One of the reasons I’m so proud of this story is thanks to all the distinctive characters who drive it. Not only Charles and Lille, but everyone around them, too. Which character is your favorite, I wonder? When I’ve asked that question before, I was surprised to hear how popular Ark is! I guess he did play a pretty vital part in the plot in the end.
There were some pretty dark scenes too, weren’t there? When the English publishers approached me, I was a little worried that those scenes would put people off, but I was relieved to hear that most readers from English-speaking countries have actually grown up reading dark fantasy. In Japan, hardly any schools teach fantasy books in literature class, so I’m extremely jealous!
I’m active on Twitter @chrishiyoko, so if you liked Rapunzel of the Magic Item Shop, feel free to let me know your thoughts. Don’t worry if you can only speak English—I don’t mind!
Finally, I would like to say a big thank you to Imoichi, the illustrator for this novel; Kai Sadler, the translator; and Charis Messier at Cross Infinite World, the publishing company.
I hope that one day you’ll be able to read even more of my works in English!
-Hiyoko Kurisu