Museum Commemorating ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’ Author Unveiled; Author Eiko Kadono, Architect Kengo Kuma Attend Ceremony

The Yomiuri Shimbun

13:32 JST, October 18, 2023

A literary museum showing the world created by Eiko Kadono, famed author of “Majo no Takkyubin” (“Kiki’s Delivery Service”), was unveiled to the press in Edogawa Ward, Tokyo, on Tuesday.

The museum, Maho no Bungakukan (Kiki’s Museum of Literature), will open to the public on Nov. 3.

The facility is also called the Edogawa-ku Kadono Eiko Jido Bungakukan (Edogawa Ward Eiko Kadono museum of children’s literature).

The museum, built in a municipal park, is a three-story building with a white exterior and a floor area of about 1,660 square meters. Architect Kengo Kuma designed the building. Strawberry red, a feature of many of Kadono’s works, has been used abundantly inside the museum. The facility’s library houses about 10,000 children’s books selected by Kadono.

Now 88, Kadono lived in the ward from the age of 3 to 23. In 2018, she received the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing, which is dubbed the Nobel Prize of children’s literature. The museum was built to honor and preserve her achievement for posterity.

Kadono, who became the director of the museum, attended a ceremony at the facility on Tuesday.

“I’ve been so excited about today,” she said. “I think this will be a place where not only Japanese people but also people from overseas can have fun.”