The term "business novel" is a translation of the Japanese word
kezai shosetsu,
which may be translated literally as * 'economy novel.'' Critic Makoto Sataka first used the word "business" in place of "economy" in his monograph
How to Read Business Novels
(1980).
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Business novels are "popular novels"
(taishu bungaku)
widely read by Japanese businessmen, their wives, students, and other professionals.. Business novels were recognized as a * 'field'' or a literary sub-genre in the late 1950s. It was Saburo Shiroyama's
Export
(Yushutsu) (1957), if not his
Kinjo the Corporate Bouncer
(Sokaiya Kinjo) (1959), which marshalled their enormous popularity. The seven short works in this collection represent prototypes of the business novel. Their distinctive features are that business activities motivate plot developments, although psycho-socio-cultural elements are tightly interwoven.