Jayne Joso is a British novelist. Having lived and worked in Japan and China, she now lives in London.
Her first novel Soothing Music for Stray Cats was published in 2009. The Times Literary Supplement review said it ‘may emerge as one of the great, eccentric London novels’. Author and The Guardian journalist Joe Moran also heralded it as ‘the debut of a distinctive voice in contemporary British fiction’. Natalie Haynes, author and BBC2 The Review Show panellist, described it as ‘an unexpected and moving story about the redemption of misfits and the consolation of strangers’.
Soothing Music for Stray Cats was shortlisted for the People’s Book Prize in 2010 (founding patron Dame Beryl Bainbridge); and is now cited in Green’s Dictionary of Slang by Jonathon Green
Other works: Joso’s first children’s book How do you Feel? was published by Benesse in Japan; and her first play China’s Smile which was commissioned in celebration of China’s Children’s Day (1 June) enjoyed a long theatre run and was later televised. As well as fiction and drama, Joso has a huge fascination with architecture and has written for publications such as Architecture Today magazine and German publisher, Prestel Art as well as ghost writing on the subject.
Having written for various architecture publications, Joso draws on her fascination for architecture and the idea of the ideal dwelling place in her second novel Perfect Architect (2011).
Perfect Architect:
“Full of originality" Times Literary Supplement
"Joso maintains a fine balance between the intellectual and the emotional in this promising, character-rich work"
Publishers Weekly, New York
"The name of Coover – recalling the American postmodern writer Robert Coover, who specialises in elaborate parodies and disrupting myths – is perhaps revealing."
"There are echoes of a Thomas Mann-style Künstlerroman – charting an apprentice’s growth to maturity... an illuminating read"
ICON Magazine (issue 099, 2011) discussion by Agata Pyzik