A novel about obsessive fandom and literary self-destruction.

“Witty, self-knowing, and far beyond categorisation.”—The Sunday Times

“Wondrous . . . a blast of cleansing heat.”—The New York Times

It’s as if her life only began once Moon appeared in it. The desultory copywriting work, the boyfriend, and anything not-Moon related quickly fall away when she beholds him in concert with the wildly popular Korean boy band, of which Moon is the youngest member. Seized by ineffable desire, our unnamed narrator begins writing fanfiction in which the reader inserts [Your/Name] and plays out an intimate relationship with the unattainable star.

When Moon suddenly vanishes from the public eye, our narrator journeys to Korea in search of the object of her love. There, an escalating series of mistranslations land her at the headquarters of the Kafkaesque entertainment company that manages the boyband until, at a secret location, together with Moon at last, art and real life approach their final convergence.

Y/N is a provocative debut about the universal longing for transcendence and the tragic struggle to assert one’s singular story amidst the amnesiac effects of globalization. Crackling with the intellectual sensitivity of Elif Batuman and the sinewy absurdism of Thomas Pynchon, Yi’s prose unsettles the boundary between high and mass art, exploding our expectations of a novel about “identity” and offering in its place a sui generis picture of the loneliness that afflicts modern life.

“A truly luminous book.” —Aidan Cottrell-Boyce

“A brilliantly compulsive, witty read exploring identity and the perils of globalisation.” — Irenosen Okojie

“Sumptuous, precise,and full of pulsing,startling life.” — Alexandra Kleeman

“A sensational debut.” — Soraya Bouazzaoui

Esther Yi
Esther Yi was born in Los Angeles in 1989 and currently lives in Leipzig, Germany. Y/N is her debut novel.