Sublimation

In this dazzling parable of connection and isolation, Isabel J. Kim's vividly crafted characters navigate identity, belonging, and the weight of a divided history. A richly imagined alternate reality that serves as a perfect allegory for our own world, where the borders of our fragmented selves are increasingly shaped and policed by corporate technologies.Scott Westerfeld, author of Uglies and The Mortons

Sublimation is an odyssey of choices and regrets, of people who would be and never were but also are, all at once, exploring immigration and separation, diaspora and the resulting split identities of cultural interweaving — both willing and unwilling. Kim masterfully blends the experimental and straightforward, jarring yet familiar, philosophical and theoretical, while examining placelessness and fractured identity through multilayered narratives. I have never felt more seen by a book in my lifeAi Jiang, author of A Palace Near the Wind

Sublimation is modern science fiction at its best and most relevant, articulating a metaphor that speaks to one of our world’s greatest and most ubiquitous crises—the border—with the terrible precision of open-heart surgery. Does it hurt more to be the one who leaves or the one who stays behind—and what if you had to be both at the same time?Vajra Chandrasekera, Nebula Award-winning author of The Saint of Bright Doors

A heartrending and mind-bending novel about our slippery sense of identity and desire – essential reading for understanding today's reality.Stephanie Feldman, author of Saturnalia