The Rope Artist その先の道に消える
Nakamura Fuminori's crime novel about the murder of a kinbaku instructor, first published in Japan in 2018 and in Sam Bett's English translation in 2023.
The Rope Artist is the English title of Sono saki no michi ni kieru, a novel by the Japanese writer Nakamura Fuminori. The National Diet Library records the original as a 246-page book published by Asahi Shimbun Publications in October 2018 and notes that it collects a serial first run in the magazine Shōsetsu Tripper. Sam Bett’s English translation was published by Soho Crime, an imprint of Soho Press, in May 2023. A Penguin Australia listing dates a paperback of the translation to August 2022, which does not match the publisher’s own date.
The story opens with the body of a kinbakushi, a rope artist, found in an apartment. In the library’s summary, a junior detective, Togashi, fakes fingerprint evidence to divert suspicion from a key witness to whom he is attracted. The publisher adds a second narrator, his scrupulously honest colleague Hayama, and places the plot in Japan’s underground BDSM scene. Kirkus Reviews notes that the novel presents kinbaku as rope artistry distinct from rope torture, that it contains detailed scenes of sexual bondage, and that it moves from the practical side of the craft toward its spiritual and metaphysical side.
The book is a work of fiction.