The Others
Germany

The Others

by Sheena Kalayil

Immigration Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Fiction 2025

Summary

As the Berlin Wall teeters on the brink of collapse in 1989, three young people from different worlds find their lives unexpectedly intertwined. Armando, a factory worker from Mozambique; Lolita, a medical student from India; and Theo, an aspiring writer from East Germany, navigate love, secrets, and political uncertainty as the world around them transforms. Through their intertwined stories, Sheena Kalayil explores the often-overlooked lives of migrants and foreign workers caught between cultures, borders, and competing visions of freedom.

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Country
Germany
Europe
About the author
Sheena Kalayil
Sheena Kalayil

Sheena Kalayil is an Indian-born British novelist and academic, born in Zambia in 1970 to Indian parents who worked as teachers. She grew up between Zambia and Zimbabwe before moving to the United Kingdom at eighteen. After studying engineering in Wales, she spent years teaching English internationally, working in countries including Mozambique, Tunisia, Nepal, and Venezuela. She holds a doctorate in linguistics and teaches at the University of Manchester, where her academic interests include language and cultural identity. Her debut novel, The Bureau of Second Chances (2017), won the Writers’ Guild Award for Best First Novel. Her subsequent works include The Inheritance (2018) and The Wild Wind (2019). Her fourth novel, The Others (2025), explores migration, belonging, and political upheaval in East Germany in 1989, drawing partly on her own experiences as an international student in Budapest during the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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Details
Published
2025
Author
Sheena Kalayil