Audition

Kitamura’s novels are short, sharp and deadly. I’m not sure there’s anyone better writing in America today – Alex Preston * Observer * Kitamura is always worth reading * Evening Standard * Kitamura … has quietly built a reputation as one of America’s best contemporary writers * BBC * Katie Kitamura is a dizzyingly skilled writer, whose fictions always seem to manage two contradictory effects: a supple seductive surface, under which the chaos of minds and repressed realities roil. She’s an original, building an entire metier of her own – Rachel Kushner You have never read anything like this gorgeously disquieting book. Audition challenges our preconceptions about love, art and selfhood – and, magnificently, our very idea of how a novel should unfold. If all the world’s a stage, Kitamura reminds us that we never stop auditioning for our parts – Hernan Diaz Kitamura is a formidable writer. With every chapter of Audition, she pushes at the walls of the novel, remaking it, expanding it, patiently and with gathering force. The result is extraordinary – an elegant, vertiginous work that is completely its own thing – Chetna Maroo Katie Kitamura is one of our most brilliant writers, saying far more in her silences, blank spaces and disruptions than most novelists can say in a hundred thousand words – Lauren Groff Sublime writing from one word to the next, from the first word to the last – Roxane Gay Beguilingly wonderful in its scrutiny of artistic process, ritual and selfhood – Sara Baume You won’t really know what Audition is about until you read it (and even then, you may have trouble deciding what and who to believe) … A sharp exploration of the performances we put on every day * Marie Claire * Katie Kitamura only writes intense and fascinating novels * Esquire * Katie Kitamura writes with a spare, almost clinical efficiency, but that doesn’t limit the depth of her characters or the complexity of the dynamics she depicts … The strange pendulum swing from one scenario to the other catches you off guard – and isn’t that the mark of truly exciting fiction? * Vogue * Katie Kitamura is among the most brilliant and profound writers at work today – Garth Greenwell Written in Kitamura’s unshakeably elegant prose, Audition is an emotional, intelligent, intensely stylish novel that reads like walking on quicksand: shocking, eerie, disorienting and utterly immersive. A mesmeric experience. It floored me – Jenny Mustard Katie Kitamura is a revelatory interpreter of the human heart, in all its brilliance and obscurity – Alexandra Kleeman

Katie Kitamura’s most recent novel is Intimacies. One of the New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2021, it was longlisted for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. It was also one of Barack Obama’s favourite books of 2021. Her work has been translated into 21 languages and is being adapted for film and television. She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature, as well as fellowships from the Lannan, Santa Maddalena and Jan Michalski foundations. Kitamura has written for publications including the New York Times Book Review, the Guardian, Granta, frieze, and others. She teaches in the creative writing program at New York University.