Literary Fiction

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The Radiance

The Radiance is a literary novel that explores spiritual awakening, personal identity, and the search for meaning in a fractured contemporary world. The story follows a writer whose life is transformed by a near-fatal hit-and-run accident on a country road. As he struggles to understand what happened, he experiences an unsettling spiritual awakening that blurs the boundary between revelation and madness. Drawn toward a brilliant colleague at a university, the narrator becomes entangled in an intense relationship and a scandal that threatens to destroy them both. As the investigation into his accident unfolds, buried family secrets emerge, forcing him to confront questions about memory, faith, desire, and his own understanding of reality. Moving between rural America and Europe, and exploring the intersections of Islam and Christianity, Akhtar examines the tensions between personal belief and public life. Blending psychological suspense with philosophical reflection, the novel asks whether moments of profound disruption can reveal something meaningful about existence, even when the truth remains uncertain.

United States 2026

Dream Count

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, has been successful at everything until—betrayed and brokenhearted—she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin Omelogor is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America—but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve. Dream Count is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s searing, unforgettable story of these four women—a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself.

We Were Forbidden

We Were Forbidden

Jacqueline Harpman

We Were Forbidden is a collection of three previously untranslated stories exploring defiance, oppression, and the struggle for personal freedom. In The Ardennes Forest, a woman and her fellow survivors wander through a mysterious woodland after an unexplained war, forbidden from leaving its boundaries or stopping their endless march. In The Outcast, a teenage girl attending a French school in 1940s Casablanca is punished for questioning the beliefs and political ideas she is expected to accept. In The Broom Cupboard, a young woman trapped in a loveless marriage begins to question the expectations governing her intimate life and imagine alternatives to her circumstances. Although the stories unfold in very different settings, each portrays a woman confronting rules imposed by external authorities or social conventions. Through unsettling scenarios, psychological insight, and understated prose, Harpman examines how obedience becomes ingrained and how individuals begin to resist it. The collection explores the tension between conformity and independence, revealing the quiet but powerful ways people challenge the boundaries placed around their lives.

She Who Remains

She Who Remains

Set in a remote village in the Albanian mountains, She Who Remains follows Bekija, a young woman facing an arranged marriage under the strict traditional laws of the Kanun. In a society where family honour and patriarchal customs govern women’s lives, she makes a radical decision: to become a sworn virgin, taking a vow of chastity that allows her to live as a man under the name Matija. Her transformation has devastating consequences, separating her from Dhana, the woman she loves, and setting off a chain of violence that tears her family apart. Years later, Matija recounts their story to a visiting journalist, gradually revealing buried secrets and painful memories. Written in a lyrical, nonlinear style, Karabash’s novel explores gender, sexuality, belonging, and the cost of freedom in a community shaped by rigid social expectations. It asks what remains of a person’s identity when survival requires abandoning the role society has assigned them.

The Witch

In The Witch, Marie NDiaye tells the story of Lucie, a woman who discovers that she possesses magical powers inherited from her mother. Living in a seemingly ordinary French suburb, Lucie struggles to pass her knowledge of witchcraft on to her twin daughters while navigating an unhappy marriage and an increasingly unstable family life. As her daughters begin to develop their own powers and assert their independence, Lucie’s sense of control over her family and identity begins to unravel. Blending dark humor, psychological tension, and elements of the supernatural, NDiaye explores motherhood, female power, and the complexities of family relationships. The novel offers a subtle, unsettling examination of the desire to control others and the difficulty of understanding those closest to us.

This Is the Only Kingdom

This Is the Only Kingdom

In Puerto Rico, Maricarmen dreams of escaping the limitations of her working-class neighbourhood, el Caserío. At seventeen, she falls in love with Rey el Cantante, a charismatic local musician whose generosity makes him a hero to some residents and a target for the police. Their relationship defies her family’s expectations, and Maricarmen soon finds herself building a life with Rey, raising their daughter, Nena, and caring for his younger brother. But addiction, violence, and painful betrayals gradually threaten the family she has fought to protect. Fifteen years later, a murder investigation forces Maricarmen and Nena to confront the consequences of their shared past. As Nena struggles with grief and explores her sexual identity, mother and daughter must navigate their complicated relationship and a community divided by loyalty, prejudice, and loss. Spanning generations, This Is the Only Kingdom is an intimate portrait of family, belonging, and survival, exploring how love can sustain people even as inherited wounds threaten to tear them apart.

Costa Rica 2025

The Lotus Shoes

The Lotus Shoes

In nineteenth-century China, bound feet known as “golden lilies” are considered essential to a woman’s marriage prospects and social standing. Little Flower, a talented young girl from a poor family, is sold into servitude as a muizai to Linjing, the privileged daughter of the wealthy Fong family. Despite their unequal positions, both girls possess qualities that could determine their futures: Little Flower has bound feet and an extraordinary gift for embroidery, while Linjing has the family connections and status that Little Flower can only dream of. Jealous of Little Flower’s talents, Linjing does everything she can to keep her servant under her control. But when scandal destroys the Fong family’s standing, both women are cast out and sent to the Celibate Sisterhood, a community of women who weave silk and seek independence from traditional marriage. There, Little Flower’s embroidery attracts the attention of a nobleman, offering her a possible escape—but also putting her life in danger. Rich in historical detail, The Lotus Shoes explores female ambition, class divisions, and the restrictive traditions governing women’s lives. Through two women whose relationship shifts between rivalry and solidarity, Jane Yang examines the difficult choices women make to survive and the unexpected ways they can shape one another’s destinies.

Journey to the Edge of Life

Journey to the Edge of Life

An unnamed Turkish writer embarks on a restless journey across Europe, following the lives and deaths of three writers who have profoundly shaped her imagination: Cesare Pavese, Franz Kafka, and Italo Svevo. Travelling through Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Zagreb, and other cities, she seeks out the places where they lived, wrote, and died, hoping to understand the connection between literature, suffering, and the desire to live. But this is no ordinary literary pilgrimage. Moving between memories, encounters with lovers, and reflections on her own troubled past, the narrator questions marriage, sexuality, political repression, and the expectations society imposes on women. Her travels become an attempt to escape the confines of her former life and discover a freedom that has always seemed just beyond reach. Blurring the boundaries between autobiography, travel writing, and fiction, Journey to the Edge of Life is an intense meditation on loneliness, mortality, and the search for meaning. Tezer Özlü transforms the European landscape into a map of her inner world, revealing how the lives of writers we admire can become inseparable from our own search for identity and freedom.

Türkiye Germany 2025

A Thread of Light

A Thread of Light

London, 1941. As German bombers descend on the city, two women find themselves caught in a different struggle: the fight for Indian independence from British rule. Ruby, a lonely air raid warden, becomes involved with the India Forum, a group campaigning for India’s freedom. She has her own reasons for joining the movement, but her growing attraction to Satyajit, a charismatic and potentially dangerous freedom fighter, forces her to question her loyalties. Meanwhile, Kitty, an Indian lawyer who has left her family in Bombay to build a life in Britain with the man she loves, risks everything to help Indian men challenge wartime conscription. As their lives intersect, political tensions, personal betrayals, and the threat of violence push both women towards decisions that could change their futures forever. Set against the Blitz and India’s independence movement, A Thread of Light uncovers a lesser-known chapter of British wartime history. Through its intertwined stories of love, sacrifice, and resistance, the novel explores the complicated relationship between colonial power and freedom, asking what people are willing to risk for their beliefs and the people they love.

India United Kingdom 2025

The Original Daughter

The Original Daughter

In 1996 Singapore, eight-year-old Genevieve Yang has always been an only child. That changes when Arin, a girl from a secret second family her grandfather left behind in Malaysia, comes to live with them. Initially uncertain of each other, the girls gradually become inseparable, forging a sisterhood that helps them navigate life in a working-class household and a society where academic achievement is seen as the path to a better future. As they grow older, Gen and Arin pursue their ambitions in different ways. But in a rapidly modernising Singapore, where success can mean everything and failure feels unforgivable, their once-unbreakable bond begins to fracture. Jealousy, resentment, and betrayal complicate their relationship, forcing them to confront what they owe their family—and what they owe themselves. Spanning years of changing relationships and personal reinvention, The Original Daughter is an intimate portrait of sisterhood, ambition, and the complicated nature of love. Jemimah Wei captures the pressures of social mobility and the longing to be seen, asking whether we can become our own people without losing those who helped shape us.

The Museum Detective

The Museum Detective

Maha Khan Phillips

A mysterious mummy discovered in a remote Pakistani desert could rewrite history. But the closer archaeologist Gul Delani gets to the truth, the more dangerous her investigation becomes. Gul is a respected museum curator and one of Pakistan’s leading experts on ancient civilisations. For three years, she has also been haunted by the disappearance of her teenage niece, Mahnaz. When police summon Gul to examine a seemingly authentic mummy discovered during a drug raid, she hopes the unexpected assignment will offer a welcome distraction. Instead, the extraordinary artefact—with symbols linking it to the ancient Persian city of Persepolis—draws her into a world of antiquities smuggling, corruption, and powerful hidden interests. As the mummy disappears and threats close in, Gul begins to suspect that the archaeological mystery and her niece’s disappearance may be connected. Determined to uncover the truth, she must navigate Karachi’s criminal underworld while confronting painful questions about her own family. Blending archaeological intrigue with a gripping modern-day mystery, The Museum Detective explores the connections between history, power, and justice—and the lengths one woman will go to uncover what others want buried. Inspired by a real-life antiquities scandal in Pakistan, it launches a crime series featuring a compelling heroine.

Waseem

What does it mean to call a place home when the land you long for has always been out of reach? In a crowded Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, Waseem lives with a disability that leaves him largely unable to speak or walk. Much of his world unfolds through a small window, until Ameena, his spirited childhood friend, brings books into his life. Their friendship grows into a deep bond shaped by shared dreams, unspoken affection, and a longing to visit their ancestral homeland, Palestine. As the years pass, Waseem must confront the limits imposed on him by his body, his circumstances, and a world that often underestimates him. Yet his story is not defined by hardship alone. Humour, tenderness, and an enduring hunger for knowledge illuminate the everyday lives of people whose hopes extend far beyond the confines of the camp. With warmth and emotional depth, Lilas Taha explores love, disability, exile, and the search for belonging. Waseem is a moving portrait of a young man determined to claim his own future while holding on to the homeland he has never known.

Lebanon Palestine 2025

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