An I-Novel is a semi-autobiographical book that was once deemed untranslatable. Upon its publication in 1995, it broke the rules of conventional Japanese literature by incorporating the English language throughout the novel, and by having the text printed horizontally rather than vertically. The story focuses on Minae, a Japanese expatriate graduate student who has turned her back on the English language and American culture and decided to return to Japan in order to become a writer in her mother tongue.

Minae Mizumura is a Japanese writer born in Tokyo in 1951. At age twelve, she moved to the United States, where she studied Studio Art in Boston and French at Yale. Known for her experimentation with language and skillful storytelling, she has been awarded the MEXT Award for New Artists in 1991, and the Noma Literary New Face Prize in 1995. Currently, she has four works translated into the English language, such as An I-Novel and The Fall of Language in the Age of English.

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