Four Black Japanese gay men team up against a culture where discrimination is deep-seated and revenge is just a click away. A searing, darkly funny debut from the Akutagawa Prize–winning author.

Nobody at the corporate offices of Athletius Japan knows much about the massage therapist Jackson—but rumors abound. He used to work as a model. He likes to party. He’s mixed race—half-Japanese, half-somewhere-in-Africa-n. He might be gay. Fueling the gossip is the sudden appearance of a violent pornographic video featuring a man who looks a lot like Jackson.

When Jackson serendipitously meets three other queer mixed-race guys, he learns he’s not the only one being targeted. Together they concoct a plan: find out who’s responsible and, in the meantime, switch identities and play tricks on people—a boyfriend, a boss—who’ve wronged them, exploiting the fact that nobody can seem to tell them apart.

A short, blistering gut punch of a novel, Jackson Alone is at turns satirical and deadpan, angry and tender—a frank exploration of identity, race, queerness, and discrimination in contemporary Japan that announces Jose Ando as a singular new talent in the global literary scene.

BIO

Jose Ando was born and raised in Tokyo, and is of African-Asian heritage. His debut novel Jackson Alone was awarded the 59th Bungei Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Akutagawa Prize, as was his second novel, The Camouflaged Man. His third novel, Dtopia, won the 172nd Akutagawa Prize, solidifying his presence as one of Japan’s brightest young literary stars.

REVIEWS

“Ando’s talent as a writer is undeniable.” -- Japan Times

“Heartbreaking, hilarious, and harrowing, Jose Ando’s Jackson Alone astounds. Investigating queerness, Blackness, and difference in a vibrant, ever-shifting Tokyo, Ando’s novel blends buddy-comedy, whodunit, and cultural excavation into a story about the many different ways we belong (and don’t). I’ve never read anything like Ando’s prose—Jackson Alone transcends the form.” -- Bryan Washington, author of Palaver and Memorial

“I read every page completely unable to predict what happens next. Jose Ando’s Jackson Alone is a subtle thriller brought to daring life by Kalau Almony.” -- Anton Hur, author of Toward Eternity

“The harmony that Jackson Alone finds between a pressing social theme and rhythmic narration filled me with a strange excitement I had never before experienced.” -- Yoko Ogawa, author of The Memory Police

[H]  Soho Crime  /  January 06, 2026

0.8" H x 8.4" L x 5.7" W (0.65 lbs) 160 pages