Read around the world - new fiction from diverse cultures
From Malaysia to Tunisia, remote Catalonia to central Istanbul our roundup of recently arrived international fiction is both illuminating and inspirational.
I gave you eyes and you looked towards darkness - Irene Solà
A polyphonic, dreamlike narrative set over one day in the remote Catalan farmhouse where an old matriarch, Bernadeta, lies dying. The story weaves together four centuries of history, folklore, and the spectral voices of her female ancestors. It all stems from an ancestor, Joana, who struck and then double-crossed the devil for a "full man," condemning her descendants to be born with various missing or flawed body parts. A daring, experimental novel, an unsentimental look at history through a defiant feminine lens.
Salutation road - Salma Ibrahim
Twenty-three-year-old Sirad Ali, adrift in South London after her father's abandonment, boards a bus one morning and is transported to an alternate present-day Mogadishu. Over a single day, she confronts the life she could have had, meeting her double, Ubah, whose family never fled the Somali Civil War. The visit irrevocably changes Sirad's sense of self and belonging. A speculative literary exploration of diaspora life, grief, and identity.
When 16 year old Dawn is forced to travel the 7km from her home in Trinidad to a Venezuelan convent to deliver and give up her baby, events are set in motion that will shape her life forever. 40 years later, now divorced and living in London, Dawn seeks to reconnect with the child girl she gave away. Love Forms is a gentle and introspective musing on motherhood, family and the paths our lives take and was a well deserved addition to this year's Booker Prize longlist.
A darkly comic, metafictional novel set in Ukraine in 2022, following three women: Yeva, an eccentric scientist who funds her endangered snail conservation efforts (including the "endling," Lefty) by working in the "romance tour" industry; and sisters Nastia and Solomiya, who use the tours to search for their activist mother. Their absurd plan to kidnap a group of Western bachelors is violently derailed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is a brilliant, unconventional work that balances satire of the mail-order bride industry and absurdist caper with the brutal reality of war.
Teenager Jay and his family travel to the south of Malaysia to visit the farm his mother has inherited from her father-in-law. There Jay's Uncle and cousin Chuan run the farm, but a catastrophic drought and financial strife in the country make things perilous. While the adults fade into the background, Jay and Chuan being a tentative love affair, discovering new realms in the nebulous surroundings of the farm. Part family drama, part coming of age story, Aw's beautifully intimate prose shines through.
When sleeping women wake by Emma Pei Yin
In the wake of the 1941 Japanese invasion of Shanghai, the women of the wealthy Tang family flee to Hong Kong: Mingzhu, the sophisticated First Wife; her strong-willed daughter, Qiang; and their devoted maid, Biyu. But when the Japanese invade the city, their paths violently diverge. Mingzhu is coerced into serving as a translator for an enemy captain while Qiang and Biyu endure brutal factory work and hardship before an encounter with the East River Column Resistance fighters leads them to separate, each embarking on a treacherous path of survival, resistance, and self-discovery. A meticulously researched novel that sheds light on a less-explored corner of World War II history.
The last apartment in Instanbul - Defne Suman
Living in the the decaying "Circle Building" for over 7 decades, Pericles Drakos, a 75-year-old Greek Orthodox Turkish citizen
resists a modern gentrification attempt while befriending a younger writer, Leyla. This encounter prompts him to chronicle his fraught life, moving between the present - against the backdrop of the pandemic, and his past. To Leyla he details the life of the Greek minority in 20th-century Turkey, enduring decades of political oppression, intimidation, and the brutal expulsions of the 1950s and 60s. A sweeping story of a man, a city and a culture.
A calamity of noble houses - Amira Ghenim
When Zbaida, a young wife born to the wealthy, progressive Rassaa family is accused of a clandestine affair with a humble intellectual and activist, her family and that of her husband's, the conservative, patriarchal Ennaifer family are torn apart. Told through multiple perspectives over several generations, A Calamity of Nobel Houses is a gripping look at the lives of women in modern Tunisia and the enduring conflict between tradition and modernity against the backdrop of a nation finding its identity.
