Read around the world - new fiction from diverse cultures
A rich tableau of international voices, from Jamaica to India, Sweden to Tunisia make up our roundup of international ficiton this month.
A dark and satirical debut novel set during the 2012 Gaza-Israel conflict, Vulture follows Sara Byrne, an ambitious and morally compromised British freelance journalist desperate for a career-making front-page story. Sara stays with other foreign correspondents in the bizarrely detached luxury of the Beach Hotel, symbolising the Western media's distance from the reality outside. Ignoring the counsel of her local fixer, Nasser, Sara pursues a dangerous and exploitative story about militant "terror tunnels," her reckless pursuit of fame forcing her to face the high ethical cost of her career. Unlikeable characters abound.
Archive of Unknown Universes by Ruben Reyes Jr.
A genre-bending novel that mixes magical realism, science fiction, romance and historical fiction while exploring the lasting impact of the Salvadoran Civil War through two intertwined timelines. In 2018 Cambridge, Salvadoran-American students Ana and Luis struggle with their relationship and family secrets stemming from the war. Ana uses "The Defractor," an experimental device that allows users to view alternate histories, leading her and Luis on a quest to Havana and San Salvador. The parallel storyline, set in 1978, details the forbidden, intense love between Neto (Luis's great-uncle and a Salvadoran revolutionary) and Rafael, a Nicaraguan compatriot and document forger. A 'what if' story of displacement, queer love, family legacy, and how choices resonate across generations and universes.
Yu Ling is a meticulous nanny who has served an elite Beijing family for years, caring for their young son, Kuan Kuan. This family is accustomed to a life of luxury and privilege, but their fortunes reverse overnight when the family patriarch, a prominent Party official, comes under government investigation. As the family's world crumbles and the parents go missing, Yu Ling is left behind with Kuan Kuan. This sudden collapse of power forces Yu Ling to confront her own long-held secrets and ambitions. Women, Seated is a taut character study, using the backdrop of political upheaval to illuminate the universal struggles of women grappling with ambition, morality, and their place in a rigid social world.
Propelled by desire and shaped by the male gaze, Restoration serves as a feminist ghost story and a retelling of the Bluebeard fairy tale. Jasmina, hired by her 'possibly' boyfriend to restore his family's crumbling mansion, confronts obsession, the violence of past relationships, and the secrets lurking behind the house's last locked room, which symbolically represents the buried trauma of the forgotten women before her. It is a dense, lyrical exploration of reclamation and female desire.
A House for Miss Pauline by Diana McCaulay
Pauline Sinclair is a 99-year-old Jamaican woman in the village of Mason Hall. As Miss Pauline prepares for her death, she feels her house—constructed from stones salvaged from a former plantation—is calling her to reckon with her past. Driven by a need for atonement, she enlists her granddaughter and a local teen to help uncover and resolve a decades-old secret concerning the disappearance of an American man. McCaulay uses Miss Pauline's quest to unpack the complex legacy of colonialism, land ownership, and hidden histories in Jamaica in this powerful, lyrical meditation on justice and redemption.
A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar
In a near-future, climate-ravaged Kolkata suffering from famine and flooding, Ma, her toddler, and her elderly father are days away from escaping to America on rare "climate visas," which represent their last hope. However, their essential travel documents are stolen. The thief is Boomba, a young man driven by desperation to provide for his own struggling family. Told through alternating perspectives, the book masterfully blurs the line between the titular "Guardian" and "Thief" and highlights the devastating choices ordinary people must make in the face of climate injustices.
Sara, a young girl growing up in a small town becomes aware of how others, often men, see her and how that shapes her sense of self. Told in lyrical, fragmented prose, the book traces her emotional development and the confusing transition from childhood to adolescence. Sara tries to understand where her confidence ends and where outside pressures begin, navigating family tensions, shifting friendships, and new expectations placed on her as she grows up. Described as a 'Lolita' story turned on its head.
The Sisters by Jonas Hassen Khemiri
The Mikkola sisters - Ina, Evelyn and Anastasia are the daughters of a Tunisian carpet seller mother and a long estranged Swedish father. The novel, told across decades, follows their lives as they grapple with their mixed heritage, family secrets, and a belief that they are under a curse while navigating complex relationships, sibling rivalry and personal struggles. The Sisters is an ambitious, sprawling epic about how the stories we tell ultimately shape who we become.
