PRIZES to win! PROMOTIONS
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Architect Sara Machina plans a proposed skyscraper meant to rehabilitate criminals through empathy. Set in a near-future Tokyo, the novel examines the dilemma of using design and language to influence justice. Sara’s reliance on an AI assistant to work through creative and ethical doubt adds a sharp contemporary edge. Thoughtful and unsettling, it asks whether empathy can be engineered and what risks arise when our words and structures become moral tools. Steve
Rie Qudan (Author) Rie Qudan was born in Saitama, Japan. After she made her debut in 2021 with Bad Music, which won the Bungakukai New Writers Award, she was quickly acclaimed as one of the most exciting new writers in Japanese literature. In 2022, her second work, Schoolgirl, was shortlisted for the Akutagawa Prize, Japan's most prestigious literary award. Her third work, The Poetry Horse, won Noma Literary Newcomer Award. Her runaway bestselling fourth novel, Sympathy Tower Tokyo was published in 2024, and won the Akutagawa Prize.
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Architect Sara Machina plans a proposed skyscraper meant to rehabilitate criminals through empathy. Set in a near-future Tokyo, the novel examines the dilemma of using design and language to influence justice. Sara’s reliance on an AI assistant to work through creative and ethical doubt adds a sharp contemporary edge. Thoughtful and unsettling, it asks whether empathy can be engineered and what risks arise when our words and structures become moral tools. Steve
So über-zeitgeisty that it might have been written this morning, yet it is far more than merely topical or trendy, as deep moral, political, social, cultural, architectural and lingual problems collide throughout this short novel. A contemporary gem * Spectator *
