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Canongate has acquired Idol, Burning by Rin Usami, "a brilliantly gripping story of obsession" translated from the Japanese by Asa Yoneda.
Publisher at large Francis Bickmore obtained UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, to the novel from Li Kangqin at New River Agency. Canongate will publish in November 2022 alongside Harper One in the US.
Oshi, Moyu/Idol, Burning was the winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 2020 and has become a phenomenon in Japan, with sales of more than 500,000 copies, according to the publisher. It has already won praise from Sayaka Murata, Toshiyuki Horie and Yoko Ogawa.
"High school student Akari has only one passion in her life: her oshi, her idol," the synopsis reads. "His name is Masaki Ueno, best known as one fifth of Japanese idol group 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’s Idol, Burning is a breath of fresh air, a story about an underachiever who starts to live vicariously through someone else’s success," Bickmore said. "Needless to say it does not go so well. A Catcher in the Rye for the TikTok generation, this novel speaks to our times and everyone at Canongate is extremely excited about sharing this Japanese bestseller with British readers."
"I’m very happy to know that the voice of Akari, the protagonist who loves Oshi and cannot live without Oshi, will reach readers in the UK," Usami said. "I’d like to express my gratitude to the translator Ms Yoneda, and everyone else involved in the publication of the English edition of the book."
Yoneda is a literary translator whose work includes Moshi Moshi by Banana Yoshimoto (Counterpoint) and a book of short stories by Yukiko Motoya. Born in Osaka, she now lives in Bristol.
"Akari’s discomfort at being a corporeal being in the age of Twitter is all too #relatable," Yoneda said. "But her devotion gives us more than a view into a niche subculture. Through her struggle to realise that she is formed of the very same stuff as her idol’s feet of clay, she embodies the rewards and perils of raising up idols that inevitably let us down."