So, I wrote something on light novels a while back. I basically explained what they were and gave some examples. But I’ve been thinking a little more about it. I responded to a friend’s question about translated books and said the last thing I read was a manga book. At the time, it was, but I’ve since read a light novel.
Whenever I see people talking about translated fiction, I always wonder why light novels are never on people’s lists. We all already class manga, manhwa, manhua as translated books. We also talk about more literary translated fiction like Murakami. I see a lot of translated crime fiction too. I’d love to see more translated romances and fantasy from all countries. But I’m going to focus on Japanese and light novels today.
So, a light novel, as I’ve said before, is a small illustrated novel. They usually have a very manga style story. Sometimes they’re spin-offs of manga series. Sometimes they get manga or dramas based off of the novels. You’ll usually find them in the manga section of the book shop, but these are mostly text with the odd illustration.
Lace and Dagger Books 