Read around the world - new fiction from diverse cultures
The best of international fiction from around the world, new on our shelves recently.
The true story of Raja the gullible (and his mother) by Rabih Alameddine
A sprawling and darkly tragi-comic saga of a Lebanese family - the narrator, Raja a 63-year-old gay philosophy teacher lives in a cramped Beirut apartment with his overbearing, octogenarian mother, Zalfa. When Raja receives a suspicious invitation to a writing residency in America, it triggers a non-linear reflection on six decades of his life. He recounts everything from his childhood, to his survival during the Lebanese Civil War and the 2020 Beirut explosion, all while bickering with a mother who views his privacy as a personal insult.
The letter carrier by Francesca Giannone
In the traditional southern Italian village of Lizzanello, in the 1930s, Anna, a northern Italian woman who moves to her husband’s family, defies convention by becoming the town’s first female postman. Over two decades, she traverses the Salento countryside on her bicycle, becoming the invisible link between families, lovers, and soldiers during the upheaval of Fascism and World War II. Inspired by the author's own great-grandmother, this is a story of quiet rebellion, independence and the tensions between duty and desire.
Hailstones fell without rain by Natalia Figueroa Barroso
Graciela, a single mother in Sydney struggling to keep her family afloat. Chula, her aunt in Uruguay living with the trauma of the 1973 coup. And Rita, Graciela's eldest daughter who yearns for independence but remains tied to her family through trauma and heritage. Weaving between the working-class suburbs of Western Sydney and the political unrest of 1970s Uruguay, this is a vibrant, semi-autobiographical debut centred on three generations of Uruguayan-Australian women, an exploration of the diasporic experience, specifically within the unique context of the Uruguayan-Australian community.
An infinite sadness by Antônio Xerxenesky
Vicente, a young Brazilian psychiatrist, moves to post-WWII France. Working in a rural asylum, he becomes a pioneer in the early days of psychopharmacology, experimenting with new drugs to cure a pervasive 'infinite sadness' that plagues his patients, a melancholy born from the trauma of the war. However, as he treats his patients, including a mysterious man who claims to have died during the Nazi occupation, Vicente begins to struggle with his own mental health, questioning the ethics of chemical intervention and the nature of memory.
We computers by Hamid Ismailov
Set in the 1980s, the story follows Jon-Perse, a French poet and psychologist who programs a computer to analyse and generate literature. Influenced by his Uzbek partner, "AI" (Abdulhamid Ismail), Jon-Perse becomes obsessed with the Persian ghazal form and the mystical life of the poet Hafez, eventually attempting to automate the 'surplus value' of human creativity. A complex, high concept novel, a commentary of poetry, creativity and individualism in the age of AI.
Our city that year by Geetanjali Shree
Loosely based on the 1992 Babri Mosque violence, the novel follows three intellectuals in an unnamed Indian city: Shruti, a writer paralyzed by the unfolding chaos; Hanif, a Muslim academic facing marginalisation; and Sharad, his Hindu colleague. An unnamed narrator obsessively 'copies' these events, acting as a witness. Described as a 'time capsule, a warning siren and a desperate plea', it is as relevant to today's India as it was when it was first published in 1998. Shree was the winner of the 2022 International Booker Prize for her novel Tomb of Sand.
We are green and trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara
A reimagining of the real life of Antonio de Erauso, a 17th-century trans conquistador who fled a Basque convent to become a soldier in the New World eventually deserting the Spanish army and retreating into the jungle with two rescued Guaraní girls and a menagerie of animals. The story is told through Antonio’s letters to his aunt, blending a queer adventure with a lush, surrealist exploration of the Amazon. The novel critiques the brutality of colonialism and religious tyranny, ultimately finding hope in the tenderness of unconventional caretaking and the transformative power of nature.
Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet
The story follows the historical triple murder committed by Angus MacPhee in the remote Hebrides in the 1850s, but filters the tragedy through his surviving brother, Malcolm. Living in squalid isolation years later, Malcolm’s fragmented narration blurs the line between memory and delusion and as he recounts the island’s harsh social hierarchy and his family’s descent into violence, his own sanity begins to unravel. Burnet uses this unreliable perspective to explore the inheritance of madness, questioning whether the real horror lies in the crime itself or the crushing weight of communal judgment. Part of the 'Darkland Tales' series of Scottish crime fiction.
