The Novels

The Novels

Website Contents:

Contact details, brief biography, awards, events, news, reviews, photos & videos, twitter - Scroll to view.

Latest news:

Joso's novella: From Seven to the Sea - out on February 4th 2019.

Arts Council England offers Jayne Joso support and funding in the writing of a book of short stories on Japan to be published in April 2020.

In Praise of My Falling Down House

The New York Times
'Jayne Joso has quietly and determinedly produced three novels over the past eight years — her latest, My Falling Down House, about a mysteriously alienated young Japanese man, is an unacknowledged gem: subtle, allusive, and deceptively ambitious.' Richard Lloyd-Parry

The Times
'It feels like a novel I've been waiting for all my life.' Asia Editor, The Times.

Longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2017
Recipient of the Sasakawa Foundation Award

'A MASTERPIECE' Anne Janowitz

'A MASTERPIECE' Anne Janowitz
'DOSTOEVESKIAN' Sho Konishi

Biography - in brief

The Times Literary Supplement describes her as a writer who applies ‘an other worldly curiosity to a basic but universal question: what is it to live somewhere?’

Jayne Joso is a writer and artist who has lived and worked in Japan, China, Kenya and the UK. She is the author of three novels, the most recent of these is set in Japan and draws on her years living in the snowy mountains of Niigata, and later in Tokyo. Her journalism has been published in various Japanese architectural magazines and in the UK’s Architecture Today. She has also ghost written on architecture, most notably on Japanese star architects for the German publisher: Prestel Art. Her work is largely concerned with matters of human empathy, issues surrounding home and homelessness, aesthetics, philosophy and cultural identity.

Her latest novel ‘My Falling Down House’ is the recipient of the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Award - given to a work which helps interpret modern Japan to the English-speaking world. It was also longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2017. Joso was awarded the Coracle Ireland, International Writer’s Residency in 2012. ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND supported work on her novella: From Seven to the Sea in 2016 - to be published by SEREN; and in 2017 ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND support work on her volume of Japanese short stories: Breath on the Wake.

Jayne Joso photographed by Joerg Rainer Noennig

Jayne Joso photographed by Joerg Rainer Noennig
Angela Carter's short story 'Fireworks' was the story that brought Japan into my life. I was 12 when I read it, and I promised myself then that I would go to live in Japan.

ICON MAGAZINE - REVIEW of PERFECT ARCHITECT

ICON MAGAZINE - REVIEW of PERFECT ARCHITECT

ARCHITECTURE TODAY MAGAZINE features PERFECT ARCHITECT

ARCHITECTURE TODAY MAGAZINE features PERFECT ARCHITECT

VIDEOS - YOUTUBE

Video - Joso’s Japan: Wood and Paper Houses - DAIWA Anglo-Japanese Foundation
Video - Jayne Joso reads from FOX MAN - artwork by Joerg Rainer Noennig
Video - Jayne Joso reads from Perfect Architect in art inspired book trailer
Video - Mark Thomas reads from Soothing Music for Stray Cats

News


ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND award Jayne Joso funding for time to write volume of Japanese short stories 'Breath on the Wake'

Nature, Blood and Dust - Talk - Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation - Joso discusses Japan's affinity with nature.

Jayne Joso on Japanese Identity in her fiction and art films. Readings, screening and interview with Mark Blacklock coming to Birkbeck University Arts Week, London.

Jayne Joso TALK at DAIWA Anglo-Japanese Foundation on traditional Japanese wood and paper houses and how they inspired her Japanese novel. VIDEO of Talk here:

ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND award Jayne Joso funding for time to write her 4th novel: From Seven to the Sea. Novel currently in progress for publication.

Jayne Joso, keynote speaker at the International Symposium on Cultural Diplomacy in the Commonwealth 2015, held at the Universal Peace Federation, London. Speech entitled: “Space, Place, Identity. Notes from a Novelist on Anti-Human Architecture”

Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Library, New York, (2013) and the Brooklyn Museum Library (2014) have each acquired Jayne Joso's poem Desire for their permanent collections - this work was written in response to stills by the photographer and filmmaker Omar Gamez. Desire forms part of the archive of New York based publisher Abe's Penny who originally commissioned the work.

Perfect Architect featured in full page discussion in ICON magazine (issue 099) - words by Agata Pyzik read in full here.

Perfect Architect in ARCHITECTURE TODAY magazine.

Jayne Joso awarded The Coracle Ireland International Writer’s Residency 2012 - A Sense of Place - based in Wexford, Ireland; part funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

Soothing Music for Stray Cats - now heavily cited in Green’s Dictionary of Slang.

German academic publishes essay on Soothing Music for Stray Cats ...

Purple Beach - short story by Jayne Joso at 3:AM Magazine read in full here.

Tokyo Spaces – new short story by Jayne Joso commissioned for 100th Anniversary edition of NWR – read excerpt here...

To the Lighthouse - short story by Jayne Joso available in print NWR magazine Autumn 2012 issue.

The dispossessed - Jayne Joso talks about writing Soothing Music for Stray Cats in 3:AM Magazine...

BBC Radio London 94.9 Jayne Joso on The Late Show with Joanne Good talking about her London based novel: Soothing Music for Stray Cats - link currently unavailable

Jayne Joso interview with Kerry Ryan for 3:AM MAGAZINE

Dazed & Confused magazine namecheck Jayne Joso and photographer Omar Gamez (The Money Issue)

Buzz Magazine (April 2011) features Soothing Music for Stray Cats & Perfect Architect

BBC6 Music Cerys featured: Soothing Music for Stray Cats as must buy for Christmas !

Jayne Joso's poetry published by American micro-magazine Abe's Penny - features on The New Yorker site...

Soothing Music for Stray Cats - shortlisted for People's BookJayne Joso honoured for her contribution to the Literature of Wales.

Jayne Joso is on Twitter @JayneJoso, but not on facebook


THE WATERSTONES LONDON BOOK LAUNCH September 2016

THE WATERSTONES LONDON BOOK LAUNCH September 2016

Events History - Selected

Reviews

Reviews for Perfect Architect:
-Times Literary Supplement - Keith Miller: “Full of originality... Joso applies an otherworldly curiosity to a basic but universal question: what is it to live somewhere?”

-Publishers Weekly, New York - "Joso maintains a fine balance between the intellectual and the emotional"

-ICON Magazine - Agata Pyzik: "echoes of a Thomas Mann-style Kunstlerroman - charting an apprentice's growth to maturity... an illuminating read"

Reviews for Soothing Music for Stray Cats:

-Times Literary Supplement - Ian Thomson: "may emerge as one of the great, eccentric London novels"

-Planet Magazine - "reminiscent of Holden Caulfield's voice in J.D.Salinger's Catcher in the Rye"

Jayne Joso writes for US micro-magazine Abe's Penny

The poem 'Desire' by Jayne Joso is published this month by US micro-magazine, Abe's Penny . It will be published in 4 parts and is a response to the work of photographer and filmmaker Omar Gámez and stills taken from his work entitled 'Costa da Caparica'.


Abe's Penny's Poetry Postcards...
The 4 linked images are published on postcards, the linked text appears on the other side; and these are mailed out 1 per week creating a small set by the end of that month's issue. The idea is that busy folk receive poetry or fiction in their mail box and have time to read it before they leave the house, or even between the mailbox and the front door.

Abe's Penny featured in THE NEW YORKER

Contact

Twitter: @JayneJoso or via publisher: SEREN

re: facebook requests - Jayne Joso is not on facebook