What Are the Naruto Hiden Light Novels?
When the manga ended, Shueisha filled the silence between chapter 699 and the epilogue with prose. The Naruto Hiden, or Secret Chronicles, are six light novels published between February and July 2015 under the Jump J Books line: Kakashi Hiden, Shikamaru Hiden, Sakura Hiden, Konoha Hiden, Gaara Hiden and Akatsuki Hiden. Each follows a different character through the unsettled peace after the Fourth Great Ninja War.
The arrangement is unusual for a flagship series: Kishimoto did not write them. Each book has its own novelist, working from the manga's world, while Kishimoto contributed the illustrations, including character artwork made for the novels. They are best understood as authorized companion fiction, closer to the databooks in spirit than to a continuation of the manga itself.
Viz translated the line as the Naruto novels, beginning English publication in November 2015, and a second family followed: the Shinden books, including the two-volume Itachi Shinden and Sasuke Shinden, then Boruto era Retsuden volumes in 2019. Two Hiden stories, Shikamaru's and Konoha's, plus Sasuke Shinden, were adapted into the closing arcs of the Shippuden anime in the winter of 2016, which is where many viewers unknowingly met them.
The physical books
Physically the Hiden are Japanese bunko-format novels with wrap covers and Kishimoto frontispieces, a different object from both tankobon and databook: text-led, small in the hand, and collected by the shelf rather than the volume. The English editions keep the Japanese cover art and format closely, so a mixed-language Hiden shelf still lines up visually.
Where they sit in the story
The Hiden answer a specific narrative problem: the manga jumps more than a decade between its last two chapters. The novels occupy the first two years of that gap, showing the war generation becoming adults, marrying, taking office and burying their dead. For readers who felt the epilogue arrived too fast, these six slim books are where the missing years live.