Audition

Reviews / Votes

Kitamura's great talent is describing the minutiae of human connections, how in the course of seconds an interaction can provoke sympathy, then irritation, followed by confusion. She can turn a single exchange into a symphony of implications * The Times * Kitamura is unparalleled . . . Always engaging and thought-provoking . . . Audition is a lightning bolt of a novel * Financial Times * Katie Kitamura's latest novel, Audition, is slick, sharp, strange and singular. I love her work; she's a writer who can conjure intrigue from the scantest detail, and you'll gulp this novel down in one in-breath -- Samantha Harvey, Booker Prize-winning author of ORBITAL * Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2025* * Kitamura's novels are short, sharp and deadly. I'm not sure there's anyone better writing in America today -- Alex Preston * Observer * A literary performance of true uncanniness: one that, in a very real sense, takes on life * Guardian * Audition has powerful things to say about our present destabilised society . . . This superb, thoughtful novel resonated long after finishing * Independent * A quiet novel about the ways we hide our true selves from others - and ourselves -- Barack Obama Kitamura is always worth reading * Evening Standard * Kitamura is totally in control of her prodigious gifts. Her confluence of style and ruthless intelligence is so distinctive that it feels almost like its own genre. Whether she remains in the terrain she has established or not, we are lucky to read her * New Statesman * A daring, riddling novel . . . A literary hall of mirrors that explores the deepest questions about performance, identity and how we relate to each other * Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2025* * 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 Highly accomplished . . . What makes Audition distinctive is a precision, a sharpness of focus * London Review of Books * Formally daring . . . The writing is as distinctive as ever in its concision and intelligence * Times Literary Supplement * 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 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 A blisteringly incisive, coolly devastating tour de force of controlled menance . . . Bold, stark, genre-bending, Audition will haunt your dreams * Boston Globe * Kitamura . . . has quietly built a reputation as one of America's best contemporary writers * BBC * A short, propulsive novel . . . Kitamura does a good job of creating a sense of the uncanny and feeling of dread * Daily Mail * 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 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 * An elegant knife of a story . . . In this searing, chilly and psychologically profound story lies insight into some harrowing human questions * Kirkus, starred review * 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 Spare, restrained, taut, disquieting * Washington Post * 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 distinctive new novel, Audition, forms a loose trilogy with her two previous books, A Separation and Intimacies - if not in terms of plot or character, then in terms of narrative voice . . . Seductive in its consistency . . . Thrillingly done * Literary Review * With taut, hypnotic prose, Audition captures the unease of human connection and the inherent instability of self-presentation . . . A thrilling, disorienting read that lingers long after the final page * Exeter Living *