Cycling to Asylum

by Su J. Sokol

In a near-future New York subject to an increasingly authoritarian and hostile government, Laek, a non-conformist history teacher, finds that he can no longer hide his radical past. After a brutal confrontation with the NYPD, he flees the United States with Janie, an activist lawyer, and their two kids, Siri and Simon. They cross the border by bicycle into Quebec by posing as eco-tourists. In a Montreal that the future has also transformed, the family faces new challenges: convincing the authorities to grant them refugee status and integrating into Quebec society. Will they find safety in their new home? Told from the points of view of the four family members, Cycling to Asylum is a unique work of interstitial fiction from Su J. Sokol, an exciting new Montreal author."

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Dystopia

338 pages, Paperback

First published May 6, 2014

About the author

Su J. Sokol is a social rights advocate and a writer of speculative, liminal, and interstitial fiction. A former legal services lawyer from New York City, xe now makes Montréal xyr home.

Sokol is the author of three novels: Cycling to Asylum, which was long-listed for the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic and has been optioned for development into a feature-length film, Run J Run, published by Renaissance Press in 2019, and Zee, which was launched at the end of 2020 in both English and French. It was a finalist for the Janet Savage Blachford Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature.

Les lignes invisibles, the French-language version of Cycling to Asylum, will be launched by VLB Imaginaire in summer of 2022. The translator is Émilie Laramée.

Sokol's short fiction has appeared or is upcoming in various magazines and anthologies including in The Future Fire, Spark: A Creative Anthology, Glittership: an LGBTQ Science Fiction and Fantasy Podcast, After the Orange: Ruin and Recovery (B Cubed Press) and Amazing Stories.

When xe is not writing, battling slumlords, bringing evil bureaucracies to their knees, and smashing borders, Sokol curates and participates in readings and literary events in Canada and abroad.