Idol, Burning

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WINNER OF THE 2021 AKUTAGAWA PRIZE
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

'My oshi was on fire. Word was he'd punched a fan'

High school student Akari has only one passion in her life: her oshi, her idol. His name is Masaki Ueno, best known as one fifth of Japanese boyband Maza Maza.

Akari's devotion to her oshi consumes her days completely. She keeps a blog entirely devoted to him, piously chronicling and analysing all his events. He is the spine of her life, she cannot survive without him. When Masaki is rumoured to have assaulted a female fan, facing waves of social media backlash, Akari's world falls apart.

Offering a vivid insight into otaku culture and adolescence, Idol, Burning is a brilliantly gripping story of obsession, coming-of-age and the addictive, relentless nature of fandom culture.

'Rin Usami writes as if under a spell - not evil but a kind of magic. I can't wait to read her next work, to see how the spell evolves. New writers should never feel they are boxed in, they should continually stretch and redefine the boundaries of the novel. That's the right kind of magic' - SAYAKA MURATA, author of CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN

Reviews

'Rin Usami writes as if under a spell - not evil but a kind of magic. I can't wait to read her next work, to see how the spell evolves. New writers should never feel they are boxed in, they should continually stretch and redefine the boundaries of the novel. That's the right kind of magic' - SAYAKA MURATA, author of CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN

'Pure brilliance' - TOSHIYUKI HORIE, author of THE BEAR AND THE PAVING STONE

'Poignant' - YOKO OGAWA, author of THE MEMORY POLICE

'[Usami's] writing is extremely fresh and she has high literary ability' - Akutagawa Prize Judges

Author Bio

Born in 1999, Rin Usami is a university student and writer. Her debut novel Kaka won the Bungei Prize and the Mishima Yukio Prize. Her second novel Oshi, Moyu / Idol, Burning won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 2021 and has become a phenomenon, selling over 500,000 copies in Japan alone. She lives in Japan.

Asa Yoneda is a literary translator and editor, and has translated works by Banana Yoshimoto, Aoko Matsuda, Natsuko Kuroda and Yukiko Motoya. Born in Osaka, she lived in Tokyo for ten years and now lives in Bristol.