Solo Dance

A powerful novel about the LGBTQ rights movement and gay love in Japan and Taiwan, from the most important queer voice of East Asia's millennial generation.

Cho Norie, twenty-seven and originally from Taiwan, is working an office job in Tokyo. While her colleagues worry about the economy, life-insurance policies, marriage, and children, she is forced to keep her unconventional life hidden-including her sexuality and the violent attack that prompted her move to Japan. There is also her unusual fascination with death: she knows from personal experience how devastating death can be, but for her it is also creative fuel. Solo Dance depicts the painful coming of age of a gay person in Taiwan and corporate Japan. This striking debut is an intimate and powerful account of a search for hope after trauma.

About the author

Li Kotomi is a bilingual Japanese-Chinese writer, translator, and interpreter. She was born in Taiwan in 1989 and moved to Japan in 2013. In 2017, she won the 60th Gunzō New Writers’ Prize for Excellence for her first novel, Solo Dance, written in Japanese, her second language. Since then she has been nominated for numerous prizes in Japan, and in 2021 she received the Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts, a prize for upcoming writers. Her range of activities spans multiple countries, regions, and languages, and her translation expertise ranges from general business to literary arts, tourism, manga, games, and contracts.

Arthur Reiji Morris is a translator of Japanese literature, manga, and video games. Born in London, he graduated from the University of Leeds in 2015, before moving to Tokyo. When he’s not translating, Arthur enjoys writing music and practicing Japanese calligraphy. He returned to the UK in 2019, and is now based in London.

Summary

A powerful novel about the LGBTQ rights movement and gay love in Japan and Taiwan, from the most important queer voice of East Asia's millennial generation.

Cho Norie, twenty-seven and originally from Taiwan, is working an office job in Tokyo. While her colleagues worry about the economy, life-insurance policies, marriage, and children, she is forced to keep her unconventional life hidden—including her sexuality and the violent attack that prompted her move to Japan. There is also her unusual fascination with death: she knows from personal experience how devastating death can be, but for her it is also creative fuel. Solo Dance depicts the painful coming of age of a gay person in Taiwan and corporate Japan. This striking debut is an intimate and powerful account of a search for hope after trauma.

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Praise for Li Kotomi


“With her powerful voice, Kotomi blows a fresh, new breeze into the often introverted world of contemporary Japanese literature.” —Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology


Praise for Solo Dance


“It takes only a moment for the idea of death to spark in a heart pushed to its limits. All that remains is that spark and the deep breathing of our narrator who has had to live in the dark. The vicious pain that squirms beautifully at the heart of this novel holds an incredible power, perhaps becoming a salvation for the reader.” —Sayaka Murata, author of Convenience Store Woman

“This book is carried by the literary traditions which the author has taken into her very being, along with an energy fostered by the breaking of cultural and linguistic barriers.” —Kan Nozaki


“In an era where everyone is perhaps too connected, we are forced to consider the importance of the solitude, not loneliness, that is depicted in this novel.” —Alisa Iwakawa, Gunzo


“Her knowledge of Taiwanese, Chinese, and Japanese literature, as well as the inevitability of her becoming a writer is evident in her work, and I look forward to her future career.” —Masaaki Takeda, Shunkan Shincho


“A striking debut from a young Taiwanese author, which follows the struggles and loneliness of a young woman, from her secret high-school love, to the incident that drastically changes the course of her life, and her eventual journey and escape to Japan.” —Kodansha, Japanese publisher

Product details

• Authors: Li Kotomi
• Assisted by: Arthur Reiji Morris (Translation)
• Publisher: Ingram Publishers Services
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 24.05.2022
• EAN: 9781642861143
• ISBN: 978-1-64286-114-3
• No. of pages: 192
• Dimensions: 128 mm x 203 mm x 24 mm
• Weight: 290 g
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; FICTION / Literary, FICTION / LGBTQ+ / General, FICTION / World Literature / Japan