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.
By Else
This book has skyrocketed to one of the best books I’ve read in 2026. It is amazing, thought provoking, heartbreaking, and asks important questions.
In Sublimation, Isabel J. Kim has rewritten human history, emigration now causes you to split into two instances, one who stays behind and one who leaves the country of origin. Two different versions of yourself now live in different parts of the world and have their own lives and experiences. Reintergration is possible, but one version of yourself won’t override the other, you will become one person with all the memories of both lives.
Sublimation focuses on Soyoung and Rose, two instances who seperated when they were about 10 years old and Rose moved to the US, while Soyoung stayed behind. Twenty years later, they reunite and find out if they remain the same person or have become someone else entirely.
I fell in love with how Isabel J. Kim wrote this book. Both perspectives from the instances’ point of view is in the second person singular, which gives the perfect distance and mindfuckery to capture how it would feel to be split in two. This book is an ambitious novel about migration, loneliness, possibilities, mindfuckery, and rewriting history. Or just an amazing literary Science Fiction novel that will stay with me for years to come.
