Erotic bestseller "Fifty Shades of Grey" will hit Japanese bookshelves this week, its publisher said Tuesday, hoping to repeat the breathless success it has enjoyed around the world.

The novel, which features a sado-masochistic sexual relationship between a young college graduate and a billionaire tycoon, is expected to be a particular hit among Japanese housewives, the publisher said.

"We have high hopes for the book, which has become a cultural phenomenon in the Western world," said Takayuki Yorimitsu of Hayakawa Publishing Corp.

"We are seeing a strong level of pre-orders from bookstores. Considering the pattern seen overseas, we believe it should attract women in their 30s and 40s," he said.

The firm is hoping Japan's voracious readers will find the racy romance as satisfying as their contemporaries in Britain and the United States, where it has dominated the bestseller lists.

The Japanese translation, which will be published on Thursday comes in two volumes and runs to a bumper 800 pages. The English language version runs to around 500.