Books from United States

“I don’t want to tell you what happened. I want to tell you how it felt.” When Cassandra Williams, known as C, is twelve years old, her seven-year-old brother, Wayne, disappears during a swimming accident. His body is never found, leaving C trapped in a grief complicated by guilt and unanswered questions. Their mother refuses to abandon hope and dedicates herself to searching for missing children, while their father eventually leaves the family. As C grows older, the loss refuses to remain in the past: she begins seeing Wayne everywhere, recognising his face in strangers on trains, in cafés, and in crowded streets. Then she meets a man who shares her brother’s name and seems connected to the mystery of her loss. Moving between perspectives and shifting versions of reality, Namwali Serpell explores how grief distorts memory and how the stories we tell ourselves can become inseparable from what we believe to be true. Both intimate and formally adventurous, The Furrows is a haunting meditation on sibling love, racial identity, and the impossible desire to recover those we have lost.

What does it mean to witness someone else’s suffering—and what responsibility comes with seeing the truth? Set in contemporary New York City, Witness brings together ten stories about people caught between the desire to care for one another and the uncomfortable truths that make connection difficult. A young girl tries to navigate tensions within her family as the home she knows faces an uncertain future. A man struggles with memories he cannot escape. A woman living with the aftermath of violence searches for a way forward. Across these lives, ordinary encounters become moments of revelation, exposing the quiet decisions that can shape a family, a friendship, or an entire community. Jamel Brinkley writes about the spaces between people: the affection that survives disappointment, the secrets that fracture trust, and the moments when silence becomes its own kind of betrayal. His characters are neither wholly innocent nor easily condemned; they are human, complicated, and often uncertain about what doing the right thing actually requires. Tender, unsettling, and deeply observant, Witness explores grief, belonging, inequality, and the moral weight of looking away. It asks whether truly seeing another person is enough—or whether we must also find the courage to act.

Set in the politically charged atmosphere of an American university on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, The Laughter follows Dr. Oliver Harding, an aging white professor of English who considers himself a progressive, liberal intellectual. His carefully constructed worldview begins to unravel when he becomes infatuated with Ruhaba Khan, a younger Pakistani Muslim law professor whose confidence, intelligence, and political activism both attract and unsettle him. When Ruhaba’s teenage nephew, Adil, arrives from France, Oliver uses his growing relationship with the boy as a way to get closer to his aunt. At the same time, campus protests over diversity and representation challenge the university’s established power structures, forcing Oliver to confront questions about privilege, race, and his own supposedly liberal beliefs. As his obsession intensifies, his behaviour becomes increasingly disturbing, and the gap between how he sees himself and how others might see him grows more dangerous. Told through Oliver’s unreliable perspective, the novel gradually reveals the prejudices and insecurities concealed beneath his intellectual sophistication. With dark humour and psychological suspense, Jha examines how people rationalise their own behaviour, how racial and cultural differences can become objects of both fascination and hostility, and how easily a sense of entitlement can disguise itself as virtue. The Laughter is a provocative exploration of power, misogyny, identity, and the contradictions of contemporary American liberalism.

When Ikemefuna, a young Nigerian dancer, boards a plane from Lagos to Texas, she imagines a new life filled with opportunity, freedom, and the promise of a happy marriage. Instead, she finds herself trapped in the home of her new husband’s parents, where her movements are controlled, her independence stripped away, and the pressure to produce a male heir grows increasingly intense. Her husband, Nna, initially struggles to reconcile his self-proclaimed feminist beliefs with his family’s expectations. As secrets emerge and the household becomes increasingly suffocating, the boundaries between victim and perpetrator, tradition and cruelty, begin to blur. Ikemefuna’s apparent obedience conceals something far more complicated, and the family’s carefully maintained facade begins to unravel. Blending domestic thriller, psychological horror, and Nigerian diasporic fiction, House Woman explores patriarchal power, forced marriage, intergenerational trauma, and the devastating consequences of silencing women. It also questions whether moving to another country necessarily brings freedom when oppressive social structures travel with you.

How far would you go to become the writer you believe you deserve to be? June Hayward has spent years watching her university friend Athena Liu enjoy the literary success she desperately craves. When Athena dies unexpectedly, June steals her unpublished manuscript, makes a few changes, and publishes it under the ambiguous name Juniper Song. The novel becomes a sensation, bringing June fame, fortune, and the recognition she has always wanted. But as questions about authorship and cultural appropriation begin to surface, maintaining her carefully constructed identity becomes increasingly dangerous. With biting humour and escalating suspense, Yellowface exposes the darker side of the publishing industry, exploring racism, jealousy, literary ambition, and the ethics of telling stories that are not yours.

Across generations of Black Muslim life in America, ten interconnected worlds of faith, family, and belonging unfold. A daughter haunted by her father’s ghost struggles to reconcile his legacy with the truth; a mother caring for her disabled son revisits a life-altering experience; and a federal agent spying on a prominent member of the Nation of Islam confronts the contradictions of his own life. Set against the complex social and spiritual landscape of Black Muslim communities, these stories explore the tension between religious conviction and human imperfection, tradition and independence, and the desire to belong and the need to question. With compassion, subtle humour, and remarkable insight, Temple Folk offers an intimate portrait of people navigating the distance between who they believe they should be and who they really are.

The Unfortunates is a darkly humorous and experimental debut novel about Sahara Kesandu Nwadike, a queer, half-Nigerian Black college student struggling to survive at an elite American university. Battling depression, academic pressure, and feelings of inadequacy, Sahara becomes increasingly disturbed by the mysterious disappearance and deaths of Black students on campus. Determined to expose the institution’s failures, she transforms her experiences into an unconventional honors thesis addressed to the university committee. Blending fiction with elements of a thesis, personal essays, playlists, emails, and visual collages, J. K. Chukwu creates an intimate portrait of a young woman confronting racism, institutional hypocrisy, and mental health struggles. Sahara’s sharp, irreverent voice combines anger with humor as she searches for meaning and connection in an environment that repeatedly marginalizes her. The novel examines the psychological cost of systemic inequality while exploring the complexities of identity, belonging, and resistance.

What happens when your life becomes unrecognisable overnight? In this imaginative debut collection, Ruben Reyes Jr. blends speculative fiction, magical realism, and dark humour to explore the experiences of Salvadoran immigrants and their descendants. An ordinary man wakes up to discover he has become a famous reggaetón star. An elderly grandmother gradually transforms into a marionette puppet. A researcher uncovers a disturbing programme that turns the bodies of undocumented migrants into artificial labourers. Moving between alternate histories, dystopian futures, and surreal versions of everyday life, these stories explore the forces that shape Central American identity. Family ties stretch across borders, technology offers unsettling solutions to human problems, and bureaucratic systems reduce lives to statistics. Beneath the collection’s strange and often absurd scenarios lies a serious examination of migration, colonial legacies, capitalism, and the struggle to be heard in a world that marginalises certain voices. Both inventive and deeply human, There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven challenges readers to reconsider whose stories are told—and what it costs to build a new life far from home.

What happens when speaking the truth becomes dangerous—and silence begins to feel like a betrayal of everything you believe in? Eighteen-year-old Nida Siddiqui is a Pakistani American Muslim whose greatest passion is poetry. Yet she keeps her writing private, afraid of exposing too much of herself to a world that often misunderstands her faith and identity. Her uncle, Mamou Abdul-Hafeedh, is a celebrated poet who has been imprisoned on terrorism charges, leaving Nida to wrestle with his legacy and the risks of speaking out. When Nida is mistreated by law enforcement at a political rally, she channels her anger into a powerful poem. Unexpectedly, it goes viral, thrusting her into a public controversy she never wanted. As accusations mount and her family faces renewed scrutiny, Nida must confront the tension between protecting herself and using her voice to challenge injustice. Blending prose, poetry, and elements of magical realism, Hope Ablaze explores Islamophobia, family loyalty, faith, and the courage to speak when the world would rather you remain silent. It is a moving coming-of-age story about discovering that finding your voice can be both frightening and liberating.

What if the recognition you’ve spent your entire life chasing turned out to be a trap? At twenty-six, Michael Wang is a talented Chinese American software engineer working at General Motors in San Francisco. Despite graduating from Princeton and developing groundbreaking self-driving car technology, he feels overlooked, trapped beneath the invisible barriers that limit his advancement. Lonely and resentful, he longs for someone to recognise his potential. Then he meets Vivian, an enigmatic woman connected to a Beijing technology startup that promises Michael everything he believes he deserves: professional recognition, wealth, and the freedom to realise his ambitions. He accepts the offer and travels to China, only for Vivian to disappear shortly after his arrival. Michael soon discovers that his new employers have recruited him for something far more dangerous than technological innovation. Caught in a web of corporate espionage and international intelligence, Michael becomes a pawn in the growing rivalry between the United States and China. As his situation deteriorates, he must confront uncomfortable questions about identity, loyalty, and the price of belonging. Hansen Shi’s debut thriller combines high-stakes espionage with a sharp examination of the myth of meritocracy and the vulnerabilities created by alienation. It asks how far someone might go to prove their worth—and what they might sacrifice along the way.

Some families carry their history in photographs and stories. Others bury it in silence, leaving the next generation to piece together the fragments. Kiều, a Vietnamese-German journalist living in Berlin, calls herself Kim because it is easier for Europeans to pronounce. She has spent years distancing herself from her Vietnamese heritage, content to live without asking too many questions about her family’s past. But when an unexpected message arrives from her estranged uncle in California announcing that her grandmother is dying, the carefully maintained distance begins to collapse. Travelling to America with her parents, Kiều encounters a family divided by the Vietnam War. Her father supported the communist revolution, while his brother sided with the Americans. Decades of silence have left their competing memories unresolved, and the family reunion brings buried conflicts, painful loyalties, and forgotten stories back to the surface. Moving between generations and continents, Brothers and Ghosts explores how war shapes families long after the fighting ends. Khuê Phạm examines the complicated inheritance of migration: the languages lost, identities reshaped, and histories passed down incompletely. It is a moving story about belonging, memory, and the courage to ask questions that previous generations could not bear to answer.

Raised by ambitious Korean immigrant parents in Texas, Hyeseung Song grows up believing that achievement is the price of acceptance. She earns her place at an Ivy League university, striving to embody the model minority ideal while struggling with depression, family expectations, and a fractured sense of belonging. But when academic success and parental approval can no longer sustain her, she faces a painful reckoning with the life she has been taught to pursue. Through mental illness, a psychiatric hospitalization, and her eventual embrace of painting, Song begins to reclaim her identity beyond the expectations imposed on her. Docile is an unflinching memoir about the cost of perfection, the complexities of mother-daughter relationships, and the courage to build a life that feels authentically one’s own.