Synopsis
What would you sacrifice for a different life?
When you emigrate, you leave a version of yourself behind. Literally. One instance crosses the border; the other instance stays trapped behind it.
Some instances keep in touch, call each other daily, synchronize their lives and minds in the hopes of reintegrating and resuming a life as one person. Other instances, like Soyoung Rose Kang, leave home at age ten and never speak to their other selves again.
With a life of her own in New York, Rose never imagined she’d return to Korea. Then her grandfather dies and Soyoung, her Korean instance, summons her home for the funeral. But Soyoung’s motives aren’t as innocent as Rose imagined, and the consequences of Rose’s return to Seoul will change her forever.
A story of doppelgängers and corporate intrigue, heartbreak and betrayal, Sublimation is an immigrant tale like no other, capturing the longing for another life and twisting it into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse.
‘One of the best debuts of the year. Sublimation speaks to our moment in ways we could not have expected.’ – John Scalzi, New York Times bestselling author of Starter Villain
‘A dazzling parable of connection and isolation’ – Scott Westerfeld, author of Uglies
‘An unsettling and suspenseful narrative about the borders that cross us and the selves we subsequently leave behind’ – Anton Hur, author of Toward Eternity
Details
09 July 2026
9781035065554Reviews
In this dazzling parable of connection and isolation, Isabel J. Kim's vividly crafted characters navigate identity, belonging, and the weight of a divided history. A richly imagined alternate reality that serves as a perfect allegory for our own world, where the borders of our fragmented selves are increasingly shaped and policed by corporate technologies.
Sublimation is an odyssey of choices and regrets, of people who would be and never were but also are, all at once, exploring immigration and separation, diaspora and the resulting split identities of cultural interweaving — both willing and unwilling. Kim masterfully blends the experimental and straightforward, jarring yet familiar, philosophical and theoretical, while examining placelessness and fractured identity through multilayered narratives. I have never felt more seen by a book in my life
Sublimation is modern science fiction at its best and most relevant, articulating a metaphor that speaks to one of our world’s greatest and most ubiquitous crises—the border—with the terrible precision of open-heart surgery. Does it hurt more to be the one who leaves or the one who stays behind—and what if you had to be both at the same time?
A heartrending and mind-bending novel about our slippery sense of identity and desire – essential reading for understanding today's reality.
