International fiction
Memorial by Bryan Washington
Houston writer Bryan Washington caused a literary stir with the publication of his terrific debut story collection, Lot, which counts the 2020 International Dylan Thomas Prize and an endorsement from Barack Obama among its many accolades. Memorial is his…
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
Amanda, Clay and their two teenaged children are expecting a quiet vacation. They’ve rented an upmarket house on Long Island for a week – revelling in the chance to enjoy some rest from the bustle of New York City and…
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
Sayaka Murata has really ramped it up with Earthlings. Her newly translated novel shares themes with Convenience Store Woman; Murata again writes about people who can’t or won’t meet society’s expectations. In Earthlings, she takes these ideas…
The Death Of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi
The Death Of Vivek Oji is the third novel from Nigerian-born Igbo and Tamil author Akwaeke Emezi in as many years. It opens with the death of Vivek Oji and, with graceful deftness, weaves back and forth through time and…
The Cold Millions by Jess Walter
The free speech fight of 1909 in Spokane, Washington, was a civil disobedience action staged by the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as Wobblies, under the charge of the then nineteen-year-old firebrand Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. During this action…
Trio by William Boyd
As the title suggests, William Boyd’s new novel Trio follows the interconnected fates of three characters. Elfrida Wing is a novelist formerly celebrated as ‘the new Virginia Woolf’, but she’s mired in a ten-year writer’s block, a displeasing marriage, and…
Jack by Marilynne Robinson
The love of our neighbour in all its fullness simply means being able to say, ‘What are you going through?’ states French philosopher, mystic and political activist Simone Weil, a thinker who, like American novelist Marilynne Robinson, properly considers the…
The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida by Clarissa Goenawan
It only takes a few lines of reading to discover that the character of the novel’s title is dead; she has committed suicide, leaving behind a young coterie of confused and devastated friends. They each think they knew her, but…
Monogamy by Sue Miller
The devil is always in the detail. Graham and Annie have been married for nearly thirty years, seemingly with great devotion. Graham is a bookseller. (Do I know him? I thought several times throughout the novel: is he based on…
Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan
Everyone has that one friend who is so vibrant that when you’re with them, everything else dissolves to mere backdrop. And everyone has had those nights that seem to simultaneously last forever and be over in an instant – in…
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