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Table of Contents
About The Book
“Provocative…Masterfully subtle.” —The New York Times
“An architectural feat in itself.” —Financial Times
The award-winning, bestselling Japanese phenomenon: a speculative, prophetic novel following a young and brilliant celebrity architect in Tokyo who takes on her most controversial project yet—perfect for readers of Klara and the Sun and Chain-Gang All-Stars.
Welcome to the Japan of tomorrow. Here, the practice of radical sympathy toward criminals has become normalized. The incarcerated are considered victims influenced by their environments to commit crime and are labeled accordingly as Homo miserabilis.
A grand, yet controversial, skyscraper in the heart of Tokyo is planned to house lawbreakers in compassionate comfort—Sympathy Tower Tokyo. Acclaimed architect Sara Machina has been tasked with designing the city’s new centerpiece but is filled with doubt. Haunted by a terrible crime she experienced as a young girl, she wonders if she might inherently disagree with the values of the project, which should be the pinnacle of her career. As Sara grapples with these conflicting emotions, her relationship with her gorgeous—and much younger—boyfriend grows increasingly strained. In search of solace and in need of creative inspiration, Sara turns to the knowing words of an AI chatbot…
The recipient of Japan’s highest literary prize, Sympathy Tower Tokyo is an extraordinary novel from one of the most exciting new global voices. Partly inspired by conversations with an artificial intelligence, it offers an urgent and brilliant defense of the power of language written by humans, a moving exploration of the imaginative impulse, and an often hilarious send-up of our modern world’s unrelenting conformity.
“An architectural feat in itself.” —Financial Times
The award-winning, bestselling Japanese phenomenon: a speculative, prophetic novel following a young and brilliant celebrity architect in Tokyo who takes on her most controversial project yet—perfect for readers of Klara and the Sun and Chain-Gang All-Stars.
Welcome to the Japan of tomorrow. Here, the practice of radical sympathy toward criminals has become normalized. The incarcerated are considered victims influenced by their environments to commit crime and are labeled accordingly as Homo miserabilis.
A grand, yet controversial, skyscraper in the heart of Tokyo is planned to house lawbreakers in compassionate comfort—Sympathy Tower Tokyo. Acclaimed architect Sara Machina has been tasked with designing the city’s new centerpiece but is filled with doubt. Haunted by a terrible crime she experienced as a young girl, she wonders if she might inherently disagree with the values of the project, which should be the pinnacle of her career. As Sara grapples with these conflicting emotions, her relationship with her gorgeous—and much younger—boyfriend grows increasingly strained. In search of solace and in need of creative inspiration, Sara turns to the knowing words of an AI chatbot…
The recipient of Japan’s highest literary prize, Sympathy Tower Tokyo is an extraordinary novel from one of the most exciting new global voices. Partly inspired by conversations with an artificial intelligence, it offers an urgent and brilliant defense of the power of language written by humans, a moving exploration of the imaginative impulse, and an often hilarious send-up of our modern world’s unrelenting conformity.
Reading Group Guide
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Sympathy Tower Tokyo Reading Group Guide
1. What is each character’s opposition to the tower? Think about Sara, Takt, and Max’s point of views.
2. Sara is puzzled that interviewers and critics don’t immediately understand her point of view. What do you think separates Sara from others, and does her relationship with Takt help her bridge that gap?
3. Sara and Takt’s relationship begins as transactional: she views him as a beautiful, autonomous machine, a gift which she is “willing to pay the appropriate price.” As the book progresses, how does their relationship extend below the surface?
4. How does Sara Machina view herself in comparison to Zaha Hadid? What do you think will be the tower’s—and Sara’s—legacy?
5. How does self-censorship play a role in the novel? Which of the three narrators seem to censor themself the most?
6. Sara talks a lot about determinism. Would the tower have had the same effect on Japanese society if Sara had chosen to step aside, and another architect had built it?
7. Sara labels Takt’s generation “AI natives.” How does AI isolate people in the text?
8. How do Sara and Takt feel helpless in the face of physical and cultural change? Have you ever felt similarly?
9. Why would Takt ask Max to remove the part of his article where Takt reveals that he and Sara know each other? Does this feel related to his change in addressing her from “Sara” to “the Architect”?
10. What does the death of Maseki Seto add to the book’s conversation around language?
11. At the end of the novel, Sara views the tower as a mirror of the self. How does this conclude her internal struggle over the tower’s politics and her past?
1. What is each character’s opposition to the tower? Think about Sara, Takt, and Max’s point of views.
2. Sara is puzzled that interviewers and critics don’t immediately understand her point of view. What do you think separates Sara from others, and does her relationship with Takt help her bridge that gap?
3. Sara and Takt’s relationship begins as transactional: she views him as a beautiful, autonomous machine, a gift which she is “willing to pay the appropriate price.” As the book progresses, how does their relationship extend below the surface?
4. How does Sara Machina view herself in comparison to Zaha Hadid? What do you think will be the tower’s—and Sara’s—legacy?
5. How does self-censorship play a role in the novel? Which of the three narrators seem to censor themself the most?
6. Sara talks a lot about determinism. Would the tower have had the same effect on Japanese society if Sara had chosen to step aside, and another architect had built it?
7. Sara labels Takt’s generation “AI natives.” How does AI isolate people in the text?
8. How do Sara and Takt feel helpless in the face of physical and cultural change? Have you ever felt similarly?
9. Why would Takt ask Max to remove the part of his article where Takt reveals that he and Sara know each other? Does this feel related to his change in addressing her from “Sara” to “the Architect”?
10. What does the death of Maseki Seto add to the book’s conversation around language?
11. At the end of the novel, Sara views the tower as a mirror of the self. How does this conclude her internal struggle over the tower’s politics and her past?
About The Author
Shinchosha
Rie Qudan was born in Saitama, Japan. Her third novel, Sympathy Tower Tokyo was awarded the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s most prestigious literary award. She lives in Japan.
Product Details
- Publisher: S&S/Summit Books (September 2, 2025)
- Length: 208 pages
- ISBN13: 9781668094129
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Raves and Reviews
“Provocative… Masterfully subtle.”—The New York Times
“An architectural feat in itself” —Financial Times
“Has all the hallmarks of compelling fiction.”—Washington Post
"A bold interrogation of crime, punishment and redemption." —The Economist
“Provocative…an intriguing window into the controversy following the tower’s opening. It’s a disarming novel of ideas.” —Publishers Weekly
“Sympathy Tower Tokyo is a brilliantly ambitious struggle and mediation on language, thought and existence. It considers the implications and limitations of language in a way I've never seen before. In these considerations is offers a new paradigm through which we might reimagine incarceration and the idea of so-called ‘criminality.’ A wondrous book.” —Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of National Book Award finalist Chain-Gang All-Stars
“SYMPATHY TOWER TOKYO stuns and illuminates. Qudan's characters are as complex and present as the worlds they inhabit - and her protagonist, Sara Machina, is original beyond measure. SYMPATHY TOWER TOKYO is an ode to language and possibility and the ongoing question of how to be in an ever-changing world.” —Bryan Washington, author of Lot and Memorial
"A haunting excursion into the space between words and reality. This novel is a marvel of precision engineering: compact, multi-layered, with unobstructed views on society, present and future. A unique construction that slowly envelops the reader to show from the inside the tower of language that imprisons us. Stimulating, unsettling, an ingenious piece of work." —Charles Yu, author of the National Book Award-winning Interior Chinatown
“Sympathy Tower Tokyo by Rie Qudan is unlike any book I’ve ever read. This brief, mesmerizing novel explores the ways we shape our spaces and the ways our spaces shape us. I was struck by its wit and its wisdom, its structure and its subversiveness, and I consumed it in a single gulp.” —Helen Phillips, author of Hum
"The work is flawless." —Shuichi Yoshida, Akutagawa Prize judge
“A contemporary gem” —The Spectator
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