Marimo, Mon Amour

WINNER OF THE CATHERINE DOCTOROW INNOVATIVE FICTION PRIZE

A technocratic collapse erases an obscure poet from existence, she and her pet moss ball refuse to disappear

Marimo, Mon Amour is a surreal, contemplative novel set in the quarantined borough of Alphabet City, where a botched data migration leaves obscure poet Zinger Zingiber effectively erased from the record. Furloughed from her jobs as a dumpling-maker and asylum specialist, she withdraws to her apartment with only her pet moss ball, Marimo, for company. As the Bureau of Misidentification bans forbidden words and controls identity, Zinger appoints herself the “Minister of Loneliness,” observing a world suspended in time.

From this quiet refuge, Zinger meditates on solitude, the fragility of memory, and the small, ephemeral moments that become acts of meaning. Her narration drifts between dream and reality, blending whimsy with philosophical inquiry. Lyrical and recursive, the novel draws on the psychological depth of Dostoevsky and the surreal sensibilities of Italo Calvino and Yoko Ogawa as it explores agency a plague of absentia. Marimo, Mon Amour will appeal to readers of literary and speculative fiction, fans of surreal or philosophical narratives, and anyone drawn to meditations on isolation, resistance, and the endurance of the human spirit.