Kotomi Li

Taiwanese-born novelist and translator who writes primarily in Japanese; winner of the 2021 Akutagawa Prize for The Island Where Red Spider Lilies Bloom (Higanbana ga saku shima) and author of Solo Dance.

This list of books are ONLY the books that have been ranked on the lists that are aggregated on this site. This is not a comprehensive list of all books by this author.

  1. 1. Solo Dance

    A young Taiwanese woman relocates to Tokyo hoping to start anew, but finds herself caught between cultures and haunted by memories of sexual violence and the suffocating expectations of family and society. As she drifts through office life and tenuous friendships, she struggles with her queer identity, profound loneliness, and thoughts of self-destruction, while headlines of random violence amplify a pervasive sense of danger. Moving between past and present, Taiwan and Japan, her story traces a raw, intimate search for belonging, safety, and a reason to keep living.

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