Jayne Joso

Jayne Joso website: www.jaynejoso.uk

Having lived and worked in Japan and China, Jayne Joso now lives in the UK. As well as fiction and drama, she has written on architecture, Japanese arts and culture. Joso's first children's book 'How do you Feel?' was published by Benesse in Japan; and her first play 'China's Smile', commissioned in celebration of China's Children's Day, enjoyed a long theatre run at the Ye Fu Theatre, Zhejiang, and was later televised.

Her first novel: 'Soothing Music for Stray Cats' (2009) was shortlisted for the People's Book Prize.

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).

'Soothing Music for Stray Cats' (2009) shortlisted for the People's Book Prize 2010.

Praise for 'Soothing Music for Stray Cats':

Ian Thomson, The Times Literary Supplement:

'Jayne Joso, who has lived and worked in Japan, is well placed to note the vagaries of mixed-up, mixed-race Britain. SOOTHING MUSIC FOR STRAY CATS, named after an album of retro doo-wop and swing by the Liverpool singer-songwriter Edgar "Jones" Jones, may emerge as one of the great, eccentric London novels.'

Emma Rae, Planet, Issue 195:

'SOOTHING MUSIC FOR STRAY CATS is a richly comic debut novel of youthful dreams and adult despair... reminiscent of Holden Caulfield's voice in J.D.Salinger's Catcher in the Rye... a generous and engaging novel which embraces the extremes of human experience so thoughtfully and yet so lightly.'

Joe Moran, Author & Guardian Contributor:

'Jayne Joso's novel skilfully melds the esoteric and the everyday, the surreal and the banal, to create a strangely gripping narrative full of dark humour. Soothing Music for Stray Cats marks the debut of a distinctive voice in contemporary British fiction.'

Natalie Haynes, BBC2 The Review Show panellist & author:

'An unexpected and moving story about the redemption of misfits and the consolation of strangers.'