Solo Dance

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 new writers.

“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; “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; “Solo Dance is a moving character study about the consequences of homophobia, and the resilience that’s required to survive it.” Foreword Reviews; “This poetic fable about finding one’s place in the world and escaping the pull of death is ambitious and thought-provoking.” The Japan Times