Idol, Burning

Winner of the 2021 Akutagawa Prize

International Bestseller

‘My oshi was on fire. Word was he’d punched a fan’

High school student Akari has only one passion in her life: her oshi, her idol. His name is Masaki Ueno, best known as one fifth of Japanese boyband Maza Maza.

Akari’s devotion to her oshi consumes her days completely. She keeps a blog entirely devoted to him, piously chronicling and analysing all his events. He is the spine of her life, she cannot survive without him. When Masaki is rumoured to have assaulted a female fan, facing waves of social media backlash, Akari’s world falls apart.

Offering a vivid insight into otaku culture and adolescence, Idol, Burning is a brilliantly gripping story of obsession, coming-of-age and the addictive, relentless nature of fandom culture.

‘Rin Usami writes as if under a spell - not evil but a kind of magic. I can’t wait to read her next work, to see how the spell evolves. New writers should never feel they are boxed in, they should continually stretch and redefine the boundaries of the novel. That’s the right kind of magic’ - Sayaka Murata, author of Convenience Store Woman