Fiction

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Loneliness & Company

Loneliness & Company

In a near-future America where loneliness has supposedly been eliminated from society’s vocabulary, Lee expects her academic success to secure her a prestigious job at a leading technology corporation. Instead, she finds herself in a struggling, half-abandoned New York City, working for an obscure company with an unusual mission: training an artificial intelligence named Vicky to understand friendship. Initially, Lee approaches the task as a research problem, studying human interactions and observing the lively social life of her roommate, Veronika. But when she discovers that her employer is part of a secret government project designed to combat a mysterious resurgence of loneliness, her ambition takes over. Determined to produce results, Lee begins pursuing increasingly risky experiences to teach the algorithm what genuine human connection looks like. As her research becomes entangled with her own emotional life, she must confront the limits of technology and her understanding of intimacy. With wit and unsettling imagination, Dyroff explores isolation, ambition and the human need to belong in an increasingly technology-driven world.

United States 2024

The Storm We Made

The Storm We Made

In 1945, Japanese-occupied Malaya is a place of fear, violence, and uncertainty. Cecily Alcantara’s family is falling apart: her teenage son, Abel, has disappeared, her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is hiding from the threat of being forced into sexual slavery, and her eldest daughter, Jujube, works in a teahouse frequented by Japanese soldiers. Cecily knows that the danger surrounding her family is connected to a secret she has kept for years—and that revealing the truth could destroy what remains of their lives. A decade earlier, desperate to escape the limitations imposed on her as a housewife in British-colonized Malaya, Cecily became involved in espionage after meeting a charismatic Japanese general. Believing in the promise of an independent Asia, she made choices whose consequences she could never have imagined. As the war reaches its devastating climax, this decision threatens everything she loves. Told through four perspectives, this sweeping historical novel explores colonialism, complicity, survival, and the moral compromises people make under oppression. It is also an intimate portrait of a family struggling to endure the consequences of one woman’s ambition and secrets.

You Dreamed of Empires

You Dreamed of Empires

Álvaro Enrigue

Set in 1519, You Dreamed of Empires imagines the encounter between Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and Aztec ruler Moctezuma in the magnificent city of Tenochtitlan. Rather than presenting the conquest as a straightforward story of European victory, Enrigue focuses on the political manoeuvring, cultural misunderstandings, and competing ambitions surrounding this pivotal meeting. Through shifting perspectives and dark humour, the novel portrays the Spanish as vulnerable outsiders entering a sophisticated civilisation whose inhabitants have their own political struggles and visions of the future. Its dreamlike atmosphere unsettles familiar historical narratives, exposing the uncertainty and violence beneath the language of conquest. Enrigue reimagines a defining moment in Mexican history while questioning how empires construct stories about power, civilisation, and inevitable victory.

The Safekeep

Yael van der Wouden

Safekeep is set in the Netherlands in 1961 and follows Isabel, a solitary woman living in the family home inherited after the death of her mother. Her carefully ordered existence is disrupted when her brother Louis arrives with his new girlfriend, Eva, who is invited to stay in the house. Isabel finds Eva intrusive and becomes increasingly suspicious of her behaviour, interpreting small disturbances as signs that something is wrong. Yet her growing fixation on Eva gradually reveals deeper tensions involving desire, family history, and the secrets embedded in the house itself. As their relationship changes, Isabel must confront assumptions she has long used to protect herself from emotional uncertainty. Van der Wouden combines psychological suspense with an exploration of postwar Dutch society, examining belonging, repression, and the ways personal histories can conceal larger historical injustices. The novel asks what it means to claim a home and what may be hidden behind the things people believe they own.

Netherlands 2024

Prophet Song

Prophet Song follows Eilish Stack, a mother of four living in Dublin as Ireland descends into authoritarianism. When a newly empowered secret police force begins targeting political opponents, Eilish’s husband, a trade unionist, disappears into state custody. As restrictions tighten and violence spreads, Eilish struggles to protect her children while navigating a society where ordinary institutions can no longer guarantee safety or justice. Her efforts to maintain a semblance of normal life become increasingly desperate as neighbours disappear, public services collapse, and the possibility of escape grows more complicated. Lynch presents the crisis through Eilish’s increasingly claustrophobic perspective, capturing the emotional exhaustion of a parent forced to make impossible choices. The novel explores authoritarianism, displacement, and the cost of resisting political oppression, showing how democracy can erode gradually until private life becomes inseparable from the struggle for survival.

Hyper

Hyper follows the Kermanj family, whose lives are shaped by migration, political upheaval, and the growing influence of global capitalism. After Rafiq Kermanj, a Kurdish communist activist, is forced to flee Tehran for London with his conservative wife and three children, the family struggles to adapt to life in exile. As the children grow up, each develops a different relationship with money and success. Siver escapes an unhappy marriage in Baghdad and raises her daughter in Dubai, Mohammed pursues a career in London’s financial sector, and Laika becomes immersed in the world of algorithmic trading near Wall Street. Their increasingly disconnected lives reveal how financial ambition can reshape personal relationships and cultural identity. Ismaïl examines the pressures of modern capitalism, the experience of statelessness, and the search for meaning in a world where economic success increasingly defines human worth.

Magnificent Ruins

Magnificent Ruins

The Magnificent Ruins follows Lila De, an Indian American book editor whose career is gaining momentum when she learns that she has inherited her family’s sprawling ancestral home in Kolkata. Having been estranged from her relatives for sixteen years, Lila returns to India to confront a past she deliberately left behind. Her arrival unsettles the extended family members who still occupy the house, many of whom resent her unexpected inheritance. As old relationships resurface and family secrets begin to emerge, Lila finds herself caught between the life she has built in the United States and the complicated history connecting her to Kolkata. Roy explores inheritance in both its material and emotional forms, examining how family loyalties, unresolved grievances, and cultural expectations influence the search for belonging. The novel considers whether confronting the past can help individuals understand the people they have become.

The Daughters of Madurai

The Daughters of Madurai

Rajasree Variyar

The Daughters of Madurai explores the lives of two generations of women connected by family secrets, gender discrimination, and the painful consequences of patriarchal traditions. In Madurai, India, in 1992, Janani lives in poverty and faces enormous pressure to give birth to a son. In her community, daughters are considered a burden, and Janani is forced to endure the unimaginable loss of children she was never allowed to protect. Decades later, in Sydney in 2019, her daughter Nila struggles with a secret of her own. When a family emergency brings Nila back to India, she begins a journey that reveals hidden truths about her family’s past. Moving between India and Australia, Variyar examines the devastating consequences of gender inequality and the ways family secrets can shape successive generations. The novel explores motherhood, belonging, and the courage required to confront painful histories in the search for truth and reconciliation.

True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)

True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)

Rabih Alameddine

True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) follows Raja, a gay Lebanese man in his late sixties who lives in Beirut and spends his days writing letters to a mysterious correspondent he calls the “Dear Comrade.” Through these letters, Raja recounts his unconventional life, his complicated relationship with his formidable mother, and the experiences that have shaped his identity. His story moves between personal memories and Lebanon’s turbulent political and cultural history, touching on sexuality, religion, war, and the challenges of growing older in a society marked by contradiction. With characteristic wit, irreverence, and tenderness, Rabih Alameddine explores the boundaries between truth and storytelling, revealing how people reinvent their pasts to make sense of their lives. Beneath its humour lies a moving portrait of family bonds, loneliness, and the search for acceptance. The novel celebrates the freedom to live outside conventional expectations while acknowledging the enduring power of love, memory, and belonging.

Martyr!

Martyr! follows Cyrus Shams, a young Iranian American poet struggling with addiction, grief, and questions about the meaning of life. Having grown up in the United States after his Iranian mother died when her passenger plane was shot down over the Persian Gulf, Cyrus feels disconnected from his heritage and uncertain about his place in the world. Newly sober, he becomes fascinated by martyrs throughout history, hoping to understand what makes a life meaningful and a death significant. His search leads him to investigate his family’s past, including the experiences of an uncle who comforted dying soldiers during the Iran–Iraq War. When Cyrus discovers the story of an ailing artist whose final days are being transformed into a work of art at the Brooklyn Museum, he begins to uncover unexpected connections to his own history. Blending humour, poetry, and philosophical reflection, Akbar’s novel explores cultural inheritance, addiction, faith, and the human desire to find purpose amid suffering and loss.

Taiwan Travelogue

Taiwan Travelogue

Shuāng-zǐ Yáng

Set in Taiwan in 1938, during Japanese colonial rule, Taiwan Travelogue follows Aoyama Chizuko, a young Japanese novelist invited to undertake a lecture tour of the island. More interested in discovering Taiwan’s culture and cuisine than participating in official colonial events, she travels across the island with her Taiwanese interpreter, Ō Chizuru. Through local dishes, lively conversations, and journeys between towns, the two women develop a close and increasingly complicated relationship. As Chizuko becomes more emotionally attached to her companion, she struggles to understand Chizuru’s reserve and the barriers separating them. Their relationship unfolds against the inequalities of colonial society, where language, nationality, and political power shape even the most intimate connections. Blending historical fiction, romance, food writing, and metafiction, Yáng explores love, cultural identity, and the silenced histories of colonial Taiwan. The novel also challenges readers to consider who has the power to tell a story—and whose perspective history chooses to preserve.

In the Shadows of Love

In the Shadows of Love

In the Shadows of Love follows Mona Ahmed, a wealthy woman living in Lahore whose seemingly perfect life conceals years of heartbreak and unresolved secrets. Married to successful businessman Bilal, she enjoys financial comfort, a beautiful home, and a respected position in high society. Yet beneath this privileged exterior, Mona struggles with memories of a lost love and the emotional consequences of a past affair that continues to affect her marriage and family. To protect her reputation, Mona maintains the appearance of a devoted wife, hosting glamorous gatherings and fulfilling the expectations of Lahore’s elite social circles. Her carefully controlled life begins to unravel when an unexpected message brings the past back into the present. As buried secrets threaten to emerge, Mona must confront the consequences of her choices and the fragile foundations of her marriage. Set against the contrasting worlds of wealth, privilege, and social pressure in contemporary Pakistan, Awais Khan’s novel explores love, betrayal, forgiveness, and the price of maintaining appearances. It also examines how rigid social expectations can trap people in lives that look perfect from the outside but conceal profound emotional suffering.

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