Literary Fiction

All countries Afghanistan Algeria Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bangladesh Barbados Belgium Benin Bosnia and Herzegovina Brazil Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cabo Verde Canada Central African Republic Chile China Colombia Congo, Democratic Republic Costa Rica Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Dominica Dominican Republic Egypt El Salvador Estonia Ethiopia France Germany Ghana Greece Hungary Iceland India Iran Iraq Ireland Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kuwait Latvia Lebanon Liberia Libya Lithuania Madagascar Mali Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Moldova Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Netherlands New Zealand Nigeria North Korea North Macedonia Norway Oman Pakistan Palestine Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Russia Rwanda Saint Kitts and Nevis Saudi Arabia Senegal Sierra Leone Singapore South Korea Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tanzania Thailand Tunisia Türkiye Uganda United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uzbekistan Vietnam Zambia

Newest first Oldest first

Where There Was Fire

Where There Was Fire

John Manuel Arias

In Costa Rica, 1968, a devastating fire at a banana plantation destroys evidence of a corporate cover-up, while a family is shattered by murder and a father’s sudden disappearance. Nearly three decades later, Teresa and her estranged daughter, Lyra, must confront the secrets that have haunted them for years. Blending family drama, ancestral spirits, and the legacy of corporate exploitation, this atmospheric novel explores how buried truths and inherited trauma can shape generations.

Costa Rica 2023

The River, the Town

The River, the Town

In a drought-stricken Pakistani village, a young man named Baadal dreams of a life beyond poverty and scarcity. When his parents’ troubled marriage begins to collapse, he finds comfort in Meena, a divorced woman searching for freedom from her own painful past. Together, they leave for the city, hoping for a fresh start—but escaping one hardship does not guarantee another life. Spanning three decades, this intimate novel explores how climate disaster, poverty, and family tensions shape the lives of those struggling to find stability and belonging.

Yellowface

Rebecca F. Kuang

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.

United States 2023

Enter Ghost

Isabella Hammad

What does it mean to perform a tragedy when your own life is shaped by one? After a painful love affair, British-Palestinian actress Sonia Nasir returns to Haifa to visit her sister, reconnecting with a homeland she has long kept at a distance. There, she joins a daring theatrical production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the occupied West Bank, playing Gertrude alongside a company of Palestinian actors determined to bring the play to life despite political restrictions, personal rivalries, and the daily realities of occupation. As rehearsals progress, Sonia begins to reconsider her relationship with Palestine, her family, and her own identity. Weaving Shakespearean tragedy with contemporary Palestinian experience, Isabella Hammad’s powerful novel explores displacement, resistance, and the transformative potential of art when simply telling a story becomes an act of defiance.

An Unlasting Home

An Unlasting Home

How do you belong to a country you have spent your life wanting to leave? In Kuwait, philosophy professor Sara faces the threat of execution after being accused of blasphemy for teaching Nietzsche. As she awaits trial, she revisits the lives of the women who shaped her: two grandmothers and two mothers whose stories stretch across Kuwait, Iraq, India, Lebanon, and the United States. Spanning nearly a century of upheaval, migration, and changing social expectations, this sweeping family saga explores the complicated ties between women, their homeland, and the histories they inherit. Can Sara find a place for herself in a world where home can be both a refuge and a prison?

Temple Folk

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.

United States 2023

My Dreadful Body

My Dreadful Body

Egana Djabbarova

In My Dreadful Body, Egana Djabbarova explores what it means to grow up as a woman in a traditional Azerbaijani family in Russia, where a woman’s body is shaped by cultural expectations, religious beliefs, and the prospect of marriage. As the narrator develops a mysterious neurological condition that causes pain, involuntary movements, and speech difficulties, her body becomes both a source of suffering and a lens through which she examines her identity. Organised into chapters devoted to different body parts, the novel weaves together intimate memories, family traditions, and reflections on gender, illness, and belonging. The narrator confronts the rules imposed on women across generations, as well as the cultural tensions of living between Azerbaijani and Russian identities. Lyrical and deeply personal, this debut novel explores how physical vulnerability can challenge social expectations and open a path towards self-determination.

The Last Pomegranate Tree

The Last Pomegranate Tree

After spending twenty-one years imprisoned in a remote desert prison, Muzafar-i Subhdam, a Kurdish peshmerga fighter, is finally released. His thoughts turn immediately to his son, Saryas, who was only a few days old when Muzafar was arrested. Determined to find the child he has spent decades imagining, he embarks on a journey through Iraqi Kurdistan, a land scarred by dictatorship, war, and political upheaval. But his search leads to a bewildering discovery: there may be three young men who share his son’s name, their lives intertwined by a history of violence and coincidence. Blending magical realism, dark fable, and historical fiction, Bachtyar Ali creates a dreamlike world in which memory and truth are difficult to separate. Beneath its fantastical narrative lies a devastating examination of how war destroys families and reshapes entire societies. Yet the novel also offers hope, suggesting that compassion, friendship, and love can endure even after extraordinary suffering.

Discontent

Beatriz Serrano

Marisa appears to have everything she should want: a beautiful apartment in central Madrid, a promising career at an advertising agency, and a convenient arrangement with her attractive neighbour. In reality, she despises her job, finds her colleagues unbearable, and struggles to discover any meaning in her carefully constructed life. She spends her working hours hiding from coworkers, watching YouTube videos, and taking tranquillizers to cope with the relentless monotony of corporate existence. Her carefully maintained professional image, built partly on lies and other people’s work, begins to crumble when she is forced to attend a company team-building retreat. Surrounded by manipulative bosses, irritating colleagues, and artificial attempts at bonding, Marisa approaches a personal breaking point. Through biting humour and uncomfortable honesty, Beatriz Serrano captures the alienation of a generation that followed society’s promises of success only to find itself exhausted and unfulfilled. Discontent is a darkly comic exploration of workplace burnout, loneliness, and the desperate desire to escape a life that looks successful from the outside but feels empty within.

Nine Yard Sarees

Nine Yard Sarees

Nine Yard Sarees is a collection of eleven interconnected stories following nine women across three generations of the Srinivasan family, a Tamil Brahmin family whose history stretches from India to Singapore, Australia, and the United States. Spanning nearly seven decades, from 1950 to 2019, the stories explore how migration, tradition, and changing social expectations shape women’s lives. At the heart of the collection are women negotiating the demands of family and community while trying to define themselves on their own terms. Raji, the family matriarch, struggles with life away from her homeland, while her daughter Padma attempts to raise her children according to traditional values. In the younger generation, Keerthana approaches marriage and the prospect of wearing the nine-yard saree, a garment symbolizing womanhood and cultural heritage. Through stories of love, grief, prejudice, and personal transformation, Ram examines the tensions between tradition and independence. She addresses patriarchy, caste discrimination, sexuality, and the complexities of belonging in the diaspora. Moving between generations and continents, the collection celebrates women’s resilience and solidarity while revealing the emotional costs of preserving cultural identity in a changing world. The book won the 2024 Singapore Literature Prize for English Fiction.

The Unfortunates

The Unfortunates

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.

United States 2023

The Bee String

The Bee Sting follows the Barnes family, whose seemingly comfortable life in a small Irish town begins to unravel under the weight of financial troubles, personal secrets, and emotional isolation. Dickie, the father, once ran a successful car dealership but finds his business collapsing during an economic downturn. His wife, Imelda, struggles with the consequences of her past and the loss of the glamorous life she once imagined for herself. Their teenage daughter, Cass, is torn between academic ambitions and the desire to escape her family, while her younger brother, PJ, quietly confronts his own fears and insecurities. Through the shifting perspectives of its four central characters, Murray explores the gap between how families present themselves and what happens behind closed doors. Blending dark humor with tragedy, the novel examines inherited trauma, denial, and the consequences of seemingly small decisions. Set against the backdrop of contemporary Ireland, The Bee Sting is an expansive portrait of a family struggling to hold itself together as its world falls apart.

1 … 12 13 14 15 16 … 34