Jayne Joso

Jayne Joso is a writer and artist who has lived and worked in Japan, China, Kenya and the UK. She is the author of four novels, From Seven to the Sea, My Falling Down House - a work described by Sho Konishi, Professor of Japanese Studies, Oxford as ‘a remarkable achievement’, and by Richard Lloyd-Parry, The Times, Asia Correspondent as ‘a novel I’ve been waiting for all my life.’- , Perfect Architect and Soothing Music for Stray Cats. Her journalism has been published in various Japanese architectural magazines and in the UK’s Architecture Today magazine. She has also ghost written on Japanese architects for the German publisher, Prestel Art.

Her literary works are largely concerned with matters of human empathy, issues surrounding home, homelessness; and cultural identity. Joso is twice the recipient of Arts Council England awards to support her writing. She also received the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Award and was longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Award 2017. Most recently she gained a small grant from the DAIWA Anglo-Japanese Foundation to continue her research in Japan.

Joso now plans to work on a variety of new Japan focussed projects that centre on exploring and discoursing contemporary life, engaging by equal measure with the banal and the sublime. 

Her new collection of short fiction Japan Stories, with illustrations by Japanese Manga artist Namiko, is due to be published in May 2021.

Photo by Paul Musso, Hay Festival.